Rising Powers
by anix113
Summary: Harry learns that he is a wizard long before anyone intended. Without anyone teaching him, he does not know what should be impossible. He breaks the rules of magic with his bushy-haired friend. AU from age 7 to 7th year. H/G/L soul bond.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Harry James Potter, age seven, was on the school roof. He did not know how he got there, nor did he know that this was perfectly normal (if not a bit premature) for the sort of person that he would have been had his parents been alive. Because Harry's parents were not unemployed, worthless alcoholics who got themselves wrapped around a tree (_"And good riddance to bad rubbish!"_ asHarry's uncle Vernon frequently said). In fact, Harry's mother, Lily, was a witch and his father, James, was a wizard.

Harry Potter was also a wizard. He did not know this, but it is impossible for a wizard to change his nature. As much as his horrid relatives tried to stamp it out of him, he would always have his magic. Untrained, it would periodically take over when he did not mean to use it, such as in the very situation he was in at the moment.

"_Okay, I'm on the roof. I must have..."_ Harry's thoughts trailed off as he realized there was no logical explanation as to how he got there. "_Maybe the wind caught me. No, that's just stupid. I'm seven years old, right? I shouldn't think of any freaky explanations about this. There must be something..."_

As Harry puzzled over his predicament, something in his mind hit another something in his mind, and his world changed forever. This happens to all magical children at some point in their lives. However, it almost always happens on September first after they turn eleven, in a controlled environment where magic is supposed to happen, with teachers that can undo any accidental damage that can happen. It is _not _supposed to happen on top of a grimy rooftop of a muggle building to someone who has not only never even heard of the existence of magic, but assured in the most forceful of manners that it specifically _does not_ exist.

"_Why do my relatives always blame me when 'freaky' things happen? Like the time my hair kept growing back, or when my teacher's hair—or the thing she called her hair—turned blue. Why do they always assume it was me? I know they hate me, and I give the feelings right back to them, not that they're ever gonna find that out, but it's a bit ridiculous._

_"They always blame these freaky things on me—the freak. Maybe I _am _causing those things. I need to think about this. But first, how do I get off of this roof?"_


	2. Sorcery

**Chapter 1: Sorcery**

After Harry half-jumped, half-fell to the ground to meet an angry janitor, he was sent home and directly into the cupboard he lived in under the stairs.

"I think you'll be in here a while, boy!" Uncle Vernon was livid, and that usually made him look funny. His face would turn red, and his cheeks would swell up like a squirrel's. Harry always giggled a little bit after Vernon was gone and he was done being scared. "Climbing on roofs like a common hoodlum! If your parents weren't even bigger freaks than you, they'd probably be rolling around in their graves!"

"What do you mean, Uncle?" Harry asked as his uncle went from red to purple. He was beginning to have an idea what his uncle meant, but he figured he couldn't get in any more trouble today, but he could get some information while Vernon was in one of his Potter-insulting moods.

"Nothing, boy! Now shut up and stop asking pesky questions!" The small vent that let Harry see out snapped shut and Vernon walked away, muttering. "Damned freaks, they're dead and they still can't leave us good folk in peace. One of these days..."

Harry was not stupid, though he usually pretended to be in front of anyone that would have cared about that. He learned at an early age that Dinky Duddykins is the best person in the world, and he can do no wrong. After being accused many times of cheating off of Dudley (in fact, Dudley always got away with cheating off of Harry, or he would still be in first year of primary school), he decided to play dumb and let Dudley flounder his way through school. The Dursleys would not care about Harry's grades. The lower the better, they thought.

Deciding that this situation needed him to think, he cheated and stopped acting dumb.

"_Okay, here's what I know for sure:_

_The Dursleys think my parents were freaks, even more than me._

_I can do unDursleyish things sometimes, and they always know it's me, even if they have no reason to accuse me._

_Dudley can talk about make-believe things as if they were true, but if I even mention something, they put me in my cupboard and yell about how it's impossible or not real, when I clearly already know it's not._

Harry frowned at this last point. Most of the things that Dudley was allowed to do, Harry wasn't, but he had a feeling that he was on the right track here. And it was this same feeling of being right that brought him to his illogical conclusion.

_"Conclusion: My parents had magic powers, and so do I." _Harry, having had a lifetime of crushed fantasies and dreams, was about to laugh this off, or rather, cry it off, because if he _really_ had magic powers, he could make his life better and do something his parents both did. Harry felt now more than ever that the story the Dursleys told him about his parent's death was a lie.

As he sat in the dark, waiting for Vernon to come and tell him that he was thinking bad things, a single tear crept down his cheek.

_"Magic. That would be nice. I wish it were real. But it's not, and there is another explanation for all of the weird things that happen to me."_ Harry was so well-trained by the Dursleys (not that it would ever be good enough for them) that he was lying to himself about what he knew to be true. Fortunately for Harry, a wizard can hide from his magic about as well as he could hide his tongue from his mouth. _"Even if it is a mad fantasy... It can't hurt to try, can it?" _

Harry closed his eyes in the dark cupboard and tried to remember the feeling he felt earlier that day. The feeling he felt when Petunia's hideous sweater shrunk to puppet-size within seconds. The feeling of having the bruises from being thrown into his cupboard healed instantly. The feeling of magic.

_"If this doesn't work, I'll stop right now and never think about such nonsense ever again." _The magic in Harry's blood could feel the resolution in his statement, and knew that if it didn't give him what he asked, his magic would waste away in Harry's depression. Or even worse, when he eventually learned how to use his magic, it would not be used for good. It was, after all, a true miracle that Harry had the kindness and optimism he did after living with the Dursleys for as long as he could remember. After wishing for a bit of light, Harry opened his eyes.

The cupboard was filled with an unearthly glow that seemed to come right out of the walls. Harry had never seen such wonderful, warm light in his life, except for that which came directly from the sun itself. He looked around in astonishment and bathed in the light. He could see parts of his cupboard that he had never seen before and watched as spiders fled from the light and into cracks in the floor. The feeling of magical light on his skin gave him a feeling he had not had in a long time: Happiness.

"I can do magic!" Harry said out loud. Too loud.

"NO YOU CAN'T, BOY! THERE'S NO SUCH THING!" Vernon ran up to the cupboard and shouted directly into the vent. He was beyond purple and well into blue. Harry shrunk back from his uncle's ready-to-explode face and into the now-darkened cupboard as his happiness faded quickly into something that was all-too-familiar: fear and sadness.

"Yes, uncle," Harry replied obligingly. He sighed in relief as Vernon once again wandered off in anger, muttering obscenities about freaks and their worthless runts.

The instant Vernon closed the vent Harry closed his eyes and wished hard for the light again. Laying onto his hard cot and basking in his light, he slowly smiled. Things were going to be better for him. He could feel it.

x x x

Several hundred miles away, an old man with a long gray beard looked with hope at a quickly spinning metal contraption that only he could understand. It began to emit a low whistle, and the bearded man smiled.  
"It appears that young Harry's accidental magic is quite impressive for his age, wouldn't you agree?" His only response was a pleasant trilling from the bird that the man thought of as his friend.

x x x

That night, Harry had one of his least favorite nightmares. Of course, he didn't have a favorite nightmare, because they were all bad. Occasionally he would have a nice dream about something that the Dursleys would undoubtedly hate, like riding on a flying motorcycle. But most of the time they were scary. Why did this have to happen on such a nice day? Sure, he got yelled at three times by two different people and spent the entire day locked in his cupboard, but he figured out the he was a real, live...ermm... whatever he was!

Last night he had a dream that, while not very scary, always gave him a horrible feeling in his stomach. There really wasn't much to the dream—darkness, a flash of green light, and horrible laughter. The kind of laughter that he knew was not at a joke or a funny situation, but the kind that he always heard from his uncle. The kind of laugh that meant someone else was in pain. But even worse was the new addition to this dream—a horrible scream that Harry felt was someone he knew. Of course, he didn't know many people, few girls, and he hadn't heard any of them scream. Except Aunt Petunia, but she had more of a banshee's shriek. Harry was very familiar with that scream.

"Boy, get out of bed and make breakfast! You've slept in long enough today, thank you very much!"

_"Speak of the devil..."_ Harry thought. He sighed and crawled out of his cupboard and prepared to make enough food for six people. Not that he would get a reasonable amount for one person, of course. Harry thought about that. _"I wonder what kinds of things I could do...maybe I could make food out of thin air. That would be nice. As soon as I'm done with my chores today I'll go find a place away from here to see what I can do. The park past Magnolia Road, maybe. Yes, that sounds good."_

Harry knew that once he had finished his chores for the day, he could pretty much do anything as long as it wasn't happening in Four Privet Drive and the Dursleys didn't know that it was causing him fun. In fact, the farther away from the house, the better. Perhaps the Dursleys hoped that he would be kidnapped and never seen again.

After he washed the dishes, mowed the lawn, put two coats of paint on the rear shed, and fixed the toys that Dudley had broke that day, he waited for the Dursleys to leave the kitchen and surreptitiously snuck out the back door and made his way to the park.

x x x

Harry expected to be caught by Vernon on his way out. He expected to be stopped by a policeman and asked why he was alone. He expected all sorts of problems that would prevent him from getting to the park and his powers. He did not, however, expect the park to be filled with dozens of children.

They were everywhere. Despite his furious attempts to find a place where he could practice his magic out of sight, he could not find one. He leaned up against a tree in thought.

_"Great. Everything went by my plan, and now that I'm here there's not a place in sight. Or rather, everywhere is in sight. Why does God hate me?" _He sighed and laid on the ground, staring into the sky.

Perhaps in order to prove that Harry was not hated by any omnipotent deities, his solution appeared right in front of him. Well, not _in front_, but straight up. Harry stood up and looked for the tallest tree in the park. He was not disappointed. Across the park was one of the largest trees that Harry had ever seen. How could he not have noticed this? In Harry's seven-year-old mind, this tree was the oldest, most ancient thing on the planet, capable of reaching into the heavens and rooted into the center of the Earth. He got to his feet and walked over to the tree.

_"If I climbed even a small way up, nobody would see me unless they knew I was there." _He looked for a branch to climb up on. Unfortunately, being a massive tree, there were no holds until about ten feet up. _"Hmm... Okay. I did it on the roof yesterday; I can do it today too." _

Harry looked up, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated on the feeling that he was beginning to associate with magic. "Take me up to the tree, take me up to the tree..." he chanted to himself, and felt a weird feeling, like being in two places at once. He opened his eyes, and he was standing thirty feet up, on a web of branches that looked almost like a chair. He sat down and smiled. Living with the Dursleys gave him no place to call his own except the tiny cupboard that he didn't really _want_ to be his own. This tree felt like a place that only he could get to, unless somebody brought a ladder. That wasn't very likely, as there were no power lines nearby that the tree might get tangled with. People would leave this tree alone, as they probably had for decades. Little did he know, almost ten years earlier, the very spot he sat in at that moment was used by another green-eyed, muggle-raised magician that wanted to get away from someone named Petunia.

_"Okay, now that I'm all settled in, I can start doing some magic."_ Harry paused. _"Ermm...so what exactly do you do with magic?"_

Living with the Dursleys and not being named Dudley, Harry had no idea what one could do with magic, just that you certainly couldn't do it at Number Four, Privet Drive. He supposed you could do things that were quite unDursleyish, and that gave Harry many options.

_"Well, if I can make myself move by magic, I wonder if I could do the same with something else..."_ Harry picked a leaf from the tree. "Sorry, tree."

Closing his eyes and recalling the feeling of magic, he opened his hand and tried to make the leaf float. "Make the leaf float, make the leaf float..." he chanted, and opened his eyes. The leaf was not moving with the wind like it should have, but was hanging in mid-air a few inches above his hand. _"Great! So I can make things float! That was much easier than making myself move. I wonder if I have a certain amount of magic that I can use up or something. I'll have to experiment with that as well."_

Harry spent the rest of his day seeing what was possible with his floating spell. By the time it started to get dark, he was able to control where it went very well, and he was beginning to get better control of his magic. Casting the spell with his eyes open, and without begging for the leaves to move was now second nature to him, and he was well on his way to controlling a leaf with each hand. Deciding that that was more than enough for one day, he checked to make sure that nobody was around—this late, the park was abandoned—and moved himself to the ground. _"I'm getting better at that,"_ Harry thought.

x x x

"Albus, really, you're making a buffoon out of yourself." A high-pitched whining filled the room, but the owner of the room was the one person that didn't seem to mind.

"He's using magic, Minerva! Without a wand!" Dumbledore stopped his jig and turned to face his guest, his expression calm but his eyes twinkling even harder than before. "I was half afraid he would have an almost... allergic reaction to magic, but this...this is beyond everything I expected at this point. If I had any doubt before, it is gone now. He is without a doubt the one to end this war."

"Or start the next one. You remember the last...person... to have this much control over his magic at such an age..." She trailed off, not wanting to remind her mentor of the mistakes of the past.

"Yes, well..." Dumbledore's smile and twinkle faded into an expression of sadness and regret. "Harry Potter has been performing what seems to be a modified levitation charm and something that seems to be of his own creation, but is certainly a light spell. Nothing harmful. He is simply finding his gift."

"And when he starts to find his 'gift' for starting fires and killing animals?"

"It won't happen, Minerva. I am paying close attention to the monitors."

"Paying close attention? Have you not noticed that incessant screeching? Or were you too busy dancing on your desk to notice?"

"Yes, isn't it wonderful?" He smiled as the whine grew even more persistent. "Ooh, he did something new!"

McGonagall sighed and stood up to leave. "Perhaps you should check in on him, Albus." With that she left.

"I'm sure he's fine," he said to the now-empty office.

x x x

"And what are you so happy about, boy?" Vernon asked, before shoving a forkful of food into his mouth. More than a forkful should be, really.

"I... I had a good dream." Harry replied simply. He watched the gears in Vernon's head turn as he tried to find something that could put Harry at fault through that statement.

"Well, I suppose it can't be helped. Now wipe that freaky smile off your face."

Years of practice meant that Harry could put on a serious expression at will, and that is exactly what he did. It was no good getting in trouble on the weekend, when he could practice his magic if he was ignored. Better to just go along like he usually did.

After clearing the plates and doing his chores, Harry decided that he was going to try to make spells that would help him do his chores faster. A cleaning spell for the dishes would certainly be easy, and he might be able to fix Dudley's broken things faster using magic. Quickly but thoroughly, he went through his chores and set out for the park, a few of the broken toy soldiers he salvaged from Dudley years ago in his pocket.

x x x

_"Okay, so I need all of the parts to fix something. That means fixing things like glass will be hard, or at least make the glass weaker than it was before. Better than completely useless though, I guess."_ Harry took almost no time at all to figure out how to clean things. Really, it was just a matter of levitating everything but the object being cleaned and throwing it to the side. Repairing things, on the other hand, gave him a bit of a challenge. He had to not only remember the feeling of his magic (which was quickly becoming almost a reflex to him) but also focus on the object and picture what the object was originally like in his mind.

After getting the hang of his two new spells, Harry decided to take a risk. Every instinct that he had was telling him not to do it. If the Dursleys found out, he'd be in his cupboard for weeks. Not that anything that simple would stop him anymore, but it was better to keep his new skills a secret for as long as possible. No, this was worth it. Harry was about to combine two things the Dursleys liked to pretend didn't exist: Magic and books. He was going to go to the library.

Although he got his new spells working easily, he knew that he didn't want to spend the rest of his life cleaning the house and fixing broken, unappreciated toys. Although, if he were paid well, and if it was a different family...no, he was going to find out what sorcerers (as he decided to call himself, which he thought sounded much more realistic than magician) were supposed to be able to do, and he would learn how to do that. And he would stop playing dumb in school, no matter what was done to him. Harry Potter was going to have a life and a future if he died trying. Little did he know, that thought was one of the most important decisions he ever made, and it would be truer than he ever imagined.

x x x

"Can I help you, young man?"

"Y—Yes, sir. I'd like to get a library card." Even though he knew they would die before setting foot in the place, Harry expected the Dursleys to pop out from a corner of the library and ask what sort of freaky thing he was up to.

"Of course, my boy. Just fill in this form and it will only take a few minutes after that." Harry took the form the man at the desk gave him, and looked it over.

"It says I need my parents' permission..." Harry looked at the man uncertainly.

"Well, yes. Until you are of age, you need your parents' permission for most things like this," the man said. "Are they here now?"

"Well, no sir, they're dead." Harry did not have much experience with people in the non-Dursley world, but he knew that playing the poor orphan card worked wonders.

"Oh. Well. I'm sorry to hear that," the librarian said as he took in Harry's six-sizes-too-large clothes and his ripped up shoes and decided that he would Do Something Nice For A Poor Orphan. "Well, you don't look like the type to return your books too late, am I right?"

Harry nodded.

"Well that's good. You go on and fill that form out. Leave the parent signature blank and I'll sign it for you. Make sure you return your books on time, okay?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Harry filled out the form and gave it to the librarian.

"I'll be back in a few minutes with your card." He smiled at Harry as he walked away.

x x x

Half an hour later, Harry left the library with a small stack of books. He went around the corner where nobody would see him and made an attempt to shrink the books so they could fit into his pocket. It wouldn't do any good to have them taken away the second he walked through the door. The Dursleys would probably burn his books instead of return them.

Never having had any exposure to any sort of popular culture outside of what he learned in school, Harry naturally had no idea what sort of books to get, so he looked at the books that the other students' favorite movies were based on. Only about half of them were actually based on books, and the other half did not seem to have anything that could be considered magic.

_"I can't believe some parents let their kids watch these kinds of things. When I have kids, they'll have none of this junk. Of course, to have kids, I have to get married, buy a house, and get settled in first. Who's gonna marry me, stupid Harry Potter? And how am I supposed to buy a house? I don't even have my own clothes." _Harry was quickly becoming depressed before he brought his mind back on track. _"That movie about the evil doll sounded cool, though. Not the evil part, the moving doll part. Maybe I'll try to do that. Only I'll have to find a way to make sure it's not evil. Hey, maybe I can change the way people think about me with magic. That sounds like something a sorcerer could do."_

Growing up with the Dursleys gave Harry an appreciation for free will that not many his age did. In fact, his was probably greater than most adults his parents' age. _"I don't think that making people do whatever I want would be very nice. That's something the Dursleys would do. But maybe I can get them to forget about me or ignore me more."_ With that thought, Harry added more ideas to his mental spell book.

Since he only actually found a few useful books out of the ones he looked up, he decided to look into the non-fiction section. He knew that some people still claimed they could do different kinds of magic, even though Harry didn't think it was the same kind he could do. He got books on Voodoo, Celtic and Norse mythology, and even Shinto.

_"They might not be completely real, but everything is based on a little bit of truth,"_ Harry thought.

He put the shrunken items in his pockets and vanished into thin air.

x x x

The mysterious device that monitored Harry's magic output reached a level of volume and annoyance that even Albus Dumbledore could not stand.

"_Silencio!"_ he said. The room was suddenly quieter than it had been in several days. He sighed. "I believe that sound has become more annoying than useful at this point, wouldn't you agree?"

Fawkes stared at him without making a sound.

"Right." Dumbledore fell into his special headmaster's chair. He had a headache from the sound of that infernal machine.


	3. The New Girl

**Chapter 2: The New Kid**

Over the next months, Harry developed his magic further than he thought possible. The spells that he once had to practice all day to get right now took him no effort at all. Not only had his skills increased, but his imagination. For Harry, if he could think it, he could make it happen. In his cupboard, he had a bookshelf cut into the wall for all of his library books and a few he had been given by his school librarian that were badly worn or unused by the children there (always given to him when out of sight of Dudley and his gang). The librarian at Harry's school liked Harry and knew that Harry was actually smart, no matter how many other faculty members told her that he always cheated, but always got away with it for lack of evidence. Harry made it so that only he would notice that the shelf was there—to anyone else it would just seem like the regular wall.

The Dursleys practically forgot about Harry's existence. Harry still did his jobs, including the ones Vernon added to make up for the original ones, which Harry now finished in only a few minutes. Harry never used any mind magic on the Dursleys, except to distract them when he would leave the house and to stop them from punishing him badly. He suspected that the Dursleys knew that he was up to something, but they wisely left him alone about it.

His tree became more of a home than Privet Drive ever was. He had made a sort of tree house about halfway up. Unlike most tree houses, his was made from the tree itself. The tree now had a table and a chair growing directly out of the trunk and branches. He was the only person in the world that had a living tree house. Occasionally, he would have prune and trim his table, but Harry now enjoyed unusual things in his life.

During the winter, he warmed up his section of the tree so that it felt like late spring instead of December, and stopped any rain or snow from intruding into his sanctuary. When it was cold or wet or cold _and_ wet, all kinds of animals would come into the warm and dry area of the tree. Harry would talk to them, not caring if they understood, but he thought he could see some intelligence in the eyes of some creatures. Most of the animals that lived in the tree knew Harry and were not afraid of him, and would take any food that he conjured and fed to them right from his hands. Birds would land on his shoulders and gently tug on his hair in an affectionate manner. At least, that's what Harry assumed it to be. He had not known affection from humans, let alone birds. Spiders, however, seemed to be deathly afraid of him and would flee from his presence, even in his cupboard where they had coexisted peacefully for as long as he could remember.

"Probably something to do with my magic," Harry said to a small snake that was sliding down a nearby branch. For some reason, snakes seemed to like him a lot. Harry never got hissed at or bitten. They also seemed to understand Harry the most.

"You are correct, young speaker, but not in the way you think." Harry stared at the snake. This was something he had not expected.

"You can talk?" Harry asked.

"No. You can," the snake hissed in an odd way, bobbing his head up and down as if he was laughing. "You are a speaker. A human capable of speaking our language. Not many are born with this ability, and it cannot be learned."

"Well, why haven't you said anything before?"

"Well, you're dreadfully _boring_, aren't you?" the snake drawled and rolled his eyes, as if it was completely obvious and Harry shouldn't have had to ask such a stupid question. "All you ever talk about is the weather and what a nice day it is. And, I'll have you know, the birds _know_ they're pretty. You don't have to tell them over and over every time one lands on you. Sure, they like the attention, but that doesn't mean that everyone else here enjoys your incessant prattling."

"My teachers think I'm very smart!" Harry said. He wasn't about to tell this stupid snake that all of his teachers thought he invented a clever new method of cheating. "And I don't think you're very nice! Now I know why everybody hates snakes!"

"Well, of course I'm not nice. I'm not_ the weather_, after all," the snake laughed silkily. Harry could not believe it! He was being mocked by something with no arms or legs! He closed his eyes, calmed himself down and tried to be civil.

"Well, I didn't know anyone could understand me. I'll try to keep my conversation entertaining for you, okay?" Harry glared at the snake. "Right. I'm Harry Potter, who are you?"

"Eh? I'm a snake. You know that already. And I thought you were a human, not a Harry Potter. You certainly _look_ human." The snake was looking at Harry as if he was even stupider than he originally thought.

"'Course I'm human. But my name is Harry Potter." The snake still looked confused. "It's what we call each other to tell each other apart. We couldn't go around saying, 'How's it going, human?' 'Not bad, human, how about you?' 'I'm swell, thanks, does human still have that nasty cough?' It would get confusing, don't you think?"

"Yesss..." The Harry Potter was smarter than he thought. "Well, you may call me what you wish, Harry Potter."

"How about..." Harry looked up in thought. "Mr. Snake!"

"How about Nathair?" He sighed. Harry Potter was much, much stupider than he thought.

"Well, alright, then." Harry agreed reluctantly. "Nice to meet you, Nathair."

"You as well, Harry Potter." At least this human was polite. The other speakers always wanted something out of him. He knew the rumors that a speaker could destroy a snake with a thought if they wanted. "What is your command?"

"Command?" Harry was confused. Even if he expected to become the master of a magically enslaved snake, he still would not know what to do. Nobody had ever let Harry make any kind of decision in his life before. After a moment of thought, Harry knew exactly what he wanted. "Er...just be my friend."

"As you wish..." This might not be so bad, after all, Nathair thought.

x x x

Harry's new friend gave him new ideas for spells, and magic in general. Although Harry never gave him a direct command (since he didn't know that he could), Nathair would always be there to help when Harry was in the tree.

"So I'm not the first sorcerer you've met before?" Harry asked.

"Sorcerer? I do not know of things like that. But there have been other people with magic like yours. Slightly different, though." Nathair did not like how this was going.

"Different? How?" Harry turned away from the spell book he was writing in to focus on him.

"They always have used a...an item of focus." As long as Harry didn't give him a direct command, Nathair could avoid the subject he was worried about.

"Item of focus? What's that?"

"Such as a wand. I have heard stories about people long ago that would use a staff..." Nathair trailed off.

"Well, that makes sense. I always wondered about that. Lots of stories have things like wands or a staff. Sometimes swords, even." Harry was excited to learn something new, but Nathair seemed to be acting oddly. "Are you okay? Tell me what's wrong."

Harry did not mean it, but that was a command, and Nathair felt the urge to give in to his will. "Speakers are well-known for using snakes for their foci."

"Oh." Harry looked at the expression of fear in Nathair's eyes and decided he should get all of the facts before using his friend to make magic. "Well... what would happen to you?"

"You...care?" Having met a speaker before, several centuries ago, and having heard rumors about their lack of compassion for their tools of power, he was flabbergasted.

"Of course I care, I'm your friend, right?" Harry said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Nathair looked at him. "Of course you are." He paused. He did not think Harry would choose to use him like that, but some people would do anything for power. "It enhances your magic by using my life force."

"You mean it'll kill you?"

"Eventually, yes."

"Well, we can't let that happen, can we?" Harry said, and that was the end of that.

"...Thank you, Harry Potter."

"What are friends for? Now, why don't you tell me some more stories about what the others could do?"

x x x

Harry's monitors began to glow with a slow pulse. Dumbledore was torn between his usual delight and a vague feeling of worry.

_"There was no way that James and Lily's son would turn out to be like Tom. Everything will go according to plan," _he thought as he covered the glowing device with a thick blanket. _"I'm sure it will."_

x x x

One day, sitting in his tree, Harry felt something odd. It was almost like when he cast a spell, only it was a bit off and it was...outside of him. There was no better explanation. He looked around to see if anything unusual had just happened. There was nothing out of order that he could tell, except that there was a snowy white owl sitting in the tree and staring straight at him. That was definitely where the magical feeling was coming from.

"Hello, are you a magical owl?" Harry asked. The owl hooted affirmatively.

"A paired owl...Not unheard of, but exceedingly unusual for someone of your age. Of course, that describes everything that happens around you," Nathair said as he slithered down to Harry.

"Paired? What do you mean?"

"She is destined for you. If she became anyone else's familiar, she would likely die. She will be closer to you than any simple pet, and you will eventually be able to read each other, and know when the other needs something. I had hoped to become your familiar, but there's no way I can compete with a paired owl..." Nathair trailed off, obviously disappointed.

"It's okay, you're still my friend. Hey, I thought you said you didn't know about humans and sorcerers."

"It's instinct. All animals that can be used by a human know this."

"Oh. What's a familiar, anyway?" Harry asked.

"It's basically your favored pet. By becoming a familiar, we will become smarter and sometimes develop a bit of magic of our own if the bond is close enough. Your bond with this owl will certainly be that close." He cast a jealous yet playful glare at the owl and coiled up in the sun to watch them.

Harry held his arm up and the owl hopped onto him. Harry gasped as a feeling of warmth crept up his arm, and he suddenly felt like he knew this owl his whole life.

"Wow," he said in awe. "Now what should I name you?" Harry went through a list of potential names. "Snowy?" The owl glared at him. "Too cliché...gotcha. Owly?" Harry received a glare in response as Nathair looked at her in sympathy.

Harry thought for a while and came up with an idea. "How about you pick your own name?" The owl looked at him as if he had grown a second head and was now fighting with it. "Okay, how many letters?" She blinked at him six times.

Harry had always wanted to play hangman before, but he never had anyone that wanted to play with him. Using his finger as a pen, he drew up a gallows and six slots for letters in midair in glowing lines. "Okay...is there an E?" The owl pointed her wing at the second slot. Harry smiled. Playing was fun, especially when he did it in the most unDursleyish way possible.

x x x

The summer passed quickly, and Harry hardly spent any time at Privet Drive. He didn't even sleep there anymore, since he made a portal that connected from his tree to the inside of his cupboard door as if they were two rooms in the same building. In case someone opened the cupboard, Harry did not want them to see a floating hole in reality. The portal would only be opened while the door was closed, so nobody except Harry would even be able to find out about its existence.

On Harry's eighth birthday, Nathair and Hedwig surprised him with a small party.

"Congratulations on surviving through eight summers, Harry Potter. You have done well," Nathair hissed to him, after dropping a mostly-dead mouse on the table for him. "I caught this one especially for you. It struggled much."

"Er...thanks," Harry said, realizing that it was, in fact, his birthday. He assumed that something struggling to not be eaten alive meant that it was an extra special mouse. "I appreciate the thought, but why don't you go ahead and eat it yourself."

"You cannot know you if you don't like it unless you try it," he replied, as he practically breathed the mouse in. "It tastes like food."

"Does it taste like people food?"

"I believe it tastes like snake food, but I do not know if it tastes like food for humans as well."

"Well, I probably shouldn't risk it. Thanks anyway, though. How'd you know it was my birthday? I didn't even remember."

"But your familiar did," he said, looking at Hedwig as she landed on Harry's shoulder and presented him with an extra-bloody mouse. "You must have known what today was somewhere in your heart, Harry Potter, because she knew you needed a party, even if it is just a few animals and some dead vermin."

Harry knew that Nathair was probably right, as he had noticed the snake's insight many times before. "Well, thanks to you, too, Hedwig. You should eat yours too. And you're not just a bunch of animals, you're my best friends. And those _vermin_ were the first presents I've ever gotten before." Harry smiled for a moment and then thought of something. "Hedwig, can you speak snake too?" Hedwig rolled her eyes.

"We animals can communicate with each other on a level beyond words, Harry Potter. You would do well to remember this," Nathair warned him.

"Er... Sorry?" Harry wasn't sure why he was apologizing.

"Don't Apologize. You performed no wrong actions. Just remember that in the future."

A bunch of orchids grew out of the table growing from the tree. It was that moment that made Harry think that the tree could think and communicate, too.

"Thanks, tree." The branches croaked in response.

x x x

If the device that monitored Harry and the wards on his house wasn't silenced, covered with a thick blanket, and locked in the bottom shelf of the headmaster's desk, Dumbledore would have seen it flashing blue and heard a piercing siren sound, indicating that the blood wards had fallen and the Dursley household was completely open to attack at any moment.

x x x

Harry walked into his class on the first day of school, sad but knowing it was for his future that he was there. He sat down in the front row of the room, not because it was closest to the teacher, but because it was the farthest away from Dudley and his clowns. Also, it was harder for him to be accused of cheating if there was nobody in front of him.

_"I don't know this teacher, but she's probably been warned about me."_ As she read Harry's name off the roll, he raised his hand and her eyes narrowed a bit. Harry sighed. _"It seems my reputation precedes me yet again. Oh well."_

As Harry went back into thinking about magic while his teacher called off the rest of the names on her list, Harry felt the same "outside magic" feeling like when he met Hedwig. By the time he realized what it was, the feeling of magic was gone. Harry looked in the direction it came from, but saw nothing unusual. He quickly forgot about it and went on with his day.

Harry sat down to eat the lunch he brought in a brown paper bag. At least, that's what he pretended to do. He actually just brought an empty bag and conjured food inside of it before reaching in and taking it out. After reaching in to get a second bit of pudding, he felt the magical signature again. And again, it disappeared as soon as it came. He looked in the general direction it came from, which happened to be in the seat directly across from him.

The seat that was empty when Harry sat down was now filled by the bushy-haired girl that sat next to him in class earlier. She was the kind of person that didn't really stand out much, and if he hadn't felt her magic, he probably would not have recognized her. He knew that she was the smart, know-it-all type that raised her hand at every question and drove people away. She was, without a doubt, the cause of the magical signature.

"If you don't want to talk to me, go ahead and say it. Just don't ignore me," the girl said while glaring at him. She obviously thought he was pretending not to see her.

"Sorry, I didn't see you sit down. I tend to get wrapped up in my own thoughts. I'm Harry Potter." He held out his hand and her frown let up a little.

"Oh. Well, I guess I should apologize. I'm somewhat used to being ignored, you see," she said, blushing slightly. "Hermione Granger. Weird name, I know but it's from—"

"Shakespeare. The Winter's Tale," Harry interrupted. It was in one of the library books he had read for ideas on magic. At least, he tried to read that one. A lot of them were very hard to read and used words Harry had never seen before. That story was about prophecies and telling the future, which Harry thought was beyond even his powers, so he didn't spend too much time on it. _"Maybe she is like me...her parents gave her a name that's kind of magic related. Although that's stretching a bit. She did give off magic twice today."_

"You know Shakespeare?" Hermione perked up as if she was informed that she was talking to Shakespeare himself. "Was it for a class here? This is my first day, we just moved here, you see. This is the second time we have moved, and my mother thinks that it's bad for my social development, and I...happen to agree...But anyway, how is the curriculum here? Do they teach much literature here? Mrs. Hughes pronounced my name 'Hermy-own' earlier, and it seemed like she wasn't particularly interested in Renaissance literature. What do you think?"

Harry stared at her, wide eyed. He had not spoken with many humans that weren't complete idiots for very long, and he had not spoken with any at all for months. He was pretty sure this was not normal. "Er... no, I tried to read some of it for...a project I'm working on. Y'know, on my own, but it was too hard for me, and not really relevant to my project, so I stopped reading it." Harry was sure that there was more to her than met the eye, and wasn't sure how to approach the subject, so he decided a blunt approach would be the best. "You're a witch, aren't you?"

Hermione felt like she'd been stabbed with a knife made of ice. Harry Potter didn't look very smart, but he definitely was, even if he couldn't read Shakespeare. He was only eight, after all. She was hoping that she might have found someone that could keep up with her. _"What was I thinking? Of course he thinks I'm a freak! He got about five words out before I started talking about curriculums and the Renaissance. Just like the rest. Oh, why do I even try?"_

Harry watched an expression that was very familiar to him fly across her face until she put on a neutral expression. It was only there for a moment, but it was there all the same. It was the expression of a friend's betrayal, of finding out that someone you trusted was just using you. Harry knew it well. He had made many 'friends' when he was younger that would inevitably sell him out and join in on Harry Hunting. And it killed him inside that he was the caused that feeling with someone else. As he went over his last statement, his brain caught up with his stupidity.

"Sorry, that came out wrong. What I meant was, are you a magic user?" Harry hoped she would believe him, and not run away crying the way it looked like she wanted to.

She sniffled. "What are you talking about?" She asked, angrily. She was busy wiping away the beginnings of a tear, but it looked like she was willing to hear him out.

"You don't know? Okay, you're just like me, then." Harry waited for Hermione to look him directly in the eyes. "Have you ever done anything unusual? Something that you thought was impossible, but it happened anyway? Something with no logical explanation?"

Hermione stared at him. "I—once my mum's hair turned into bits of rope when she wouldn't let me stay up to watch Monty Python..." She looked highly embarrassed to admit this. Harry did not know who Monty Python was, but if he was worth an argument with her parents, he must be very smart. "How did you know about that?"

"I felt your magic. Earlier, in the classroom, and right before you yelled at me just now for ignoring you. That's what made me look up. You got angry at me, and you must have been just on the edge of accidentally using magic on me."

"And you're a witch?" she asked, still highly doubtful.

"Of course not! Only girls are witches! I'm a sorcerer," he said, then mumbled, "Yes, I'm _a witch._ What were you thinking?

"Anyway, do you think your parents could do it?" Harry asked, hoping to find someone that could tell him about it. "I think mine might have been able to. But I'm pretty much just guessing about that."

"Well, why don't you ask them?" Hermione asked.

"Oh. They were killed, you see. I live—or at least I'm supposed to be—with my aunt and uncle, and they don't like me asking about my parents, let alone starting a conversation about magic and sorcerers."

"Supposed to be?"

"Oops. Oh, well. I would have to show you anyway if I'm going to teach you about magic."

"You're going to teach me?" Hermione asked hopefully. She loved learning things, and this sounded like something that not just anyone could do. "Could you show me something now?"

"Why don't you have a cookie first?" Harry held out his brown paper bag. Hermione saw something in Harry's smile that said he was offering her more than what he was saying, but she reached in to take one. And kept reaching. She never touched the other end of the bag, and her arm was at least a foot in. "Okay, take it out, before somebody sees."

She took her hand out and looked at it in wonder, before realizing that there was a cookie in her fist that she did not remember picking up. As she ate it, she couldn't help but think, _"This is going to be fun."_

x x x

"Mum?"

"Yes, dear?" Hermione's mother put down the box that she was unpacking when she heard the nervousness in her voice that meant she was going to have to answer a tough question for her daughter. She hoped she didn't have to give her The Talk already.

"Well, I met this boy at school today..." she trailed of and looked away.

Emma Granger sighed. She sat down and got ready for a long conversation. "And?"

"And he said I'm a witch!" she shouted out as fast as she could, looking at her mother's reaction. There was a mixture of relief and amusement.

"Well, boys that age tend to say silly things sometimes. I'm sure he didn't mean it, dear."

"No, he definitely did!" Hermione didn't seem to be upset about this at all. In fact she seemed to be happy. "And he said you might be one, too! Are you a witch, Mum?"

Emma thought Hermione might have taken an insult for a compliment, but she was smarter than that. Maybe she was starting to like boys, after all. She remembered how they could make a girl do stupid things into her twenties in some cases. Like the time Dan made her lick that icy flagpole. She couldn't taste anything for days after that. Then again, her little Hermione was brilliant. "Er...you mean like an actual, cauldron and broomsticks witch?"

"Exactly!" Hermione nodded happily. "Well? Are you?"

"N—No, Hermione. There's no such thing. Well, there are some religions with witchcraft, but that's closer to a different type of prayer than it is to waving a wand and seeing sparks."

"Oh. Well, there's no helping that, I suppose." Hermione walked away and went up the stairs. "Daddy? Are you a sorcerer?"

Emma felt like she was missing out on something.

x x x

Hermione went to the park that afternoon like Harry told her. She was the only one in the park, and Harry was nowhere to be seen. As she sat on a bench, her doubt kicked in again, and she wondered if maybe he was just messing with her after all. He probably expected her to be out here all night, sitting all alone until she—

"Hey," Harry said, and Hermione jumped.

"Don't do that!" she screamed, and Harry laughed.

"Well, you were expecting me, weren't you? Now come on, I'll take you to my place." Harry started to walk away.

"Wait. You mean you had me meet you here in the middle of nowhere just so we could go somewhere else? You could have just given me your address, you know." Hermione crossed her arms and huffed.

"It wouldn't do you too good. My relatives would have told you that they've never heard of me before." Harry led her up to a wall and took out a piece of chalk.

"Well, why would they do that? They must not be very good relatives," she said, thinking he was having her on.

"No. They're not." He looked her directly in the eyes and muttered, leaving no question in Hermione's mind as to how his relationship with them was. He turned back, drew a small symbol on the bottom of the wall and raised the chalk to draw a large oval from ground level to as high as he could reach.

"So instead, you took me to the park to play with chalk. Is that Chinese?" She pointed at the symbol.

"Well, technically, it's Japanese but in this case there's no difference whatsoever."

"What does it say?" she asked, unable to resist knowing something she didn't a second ago.

"Ki. It means 'Tree,'" he said, and drew a line from the top to the bottom in the center of the oval. As he drew the line, it opened a hole in the wall as if he were zipping down a sweater. Harry put the chalk in his pocket and walked through the hole as if he did it every day (which he did). "Come on in."

"What is it? Is it safe?" she asked, looking at the glowing hole in space with suspicion.

"It's a portal, and it's probably safe. You're the only human besides me who's ever seen one, as far as I know." This did not assuage Hermione's fears. She slowly put one foot in, and tested it like the other side of the hole was a shoddy bridge. Deciding it was going to hold her weight, she stepped through. Harry gave the wall on his side a kick, and the portal closed.

"Can I get you something to eat or drink?" Harry asked as Hermione looked around. Wherever Harry had taken her, it was beautiful.

"Er...I'll have some of whatever you're having," Hermione said as she looked around.

They were standing in what appeared to be a tree house. A warm-feeling light came out of nowhere and lit the place up, even though it was overcast outside. The furniture appeared to be growing straight out of the tree itself and into the usual shapes: A table, a few chairs, and a bed of leaves, moss, and grass that looked softer than any mattress. For a tree house, there was an incredible amount of space in all directions, definitely bigger than a small studio flat. The walls were made of vines and small, twisting branches, and were covered in exotic plants and flowers that could not possibly be native to England, and seemed more fitting in a rain forest. Insects and small animals made themselves at home, but none of them looked at all afraid of Harry, and very few reacted to his presence. A snowy white owl hooted at Hermione in what she assumed was a greeting.

"H—Hello," she said uncertainly to the owl, who winked once at her and closed its eyes. Any doubt Hermione had left that Harry Potter was an ordinary person went out the window, which was moving around the ivy walls in a seemingly random manner, showing her the park that they just left.

Harry looked at the table and two glass bottles of coke appeared, along with a plate of brightly-colored sweet things that no child would dislike. "Here you go. I know my place isn't much—",

"Not Much?" Hermione interrupted.

"...But I call it home and it's better than living in...with my relatives," Harry finished. He opened his coke and sat down. "Plus my friends are here."

"Harry. This is the most amazing place I have ever been in. It's incredible! I feel like I'm in a whole new world!"

"You are," Harry replied, smiling. "Welcome to the world of magic."

"You said other people live here?" Hermione looked around, expecting to see a door to another room or a set of stairs.

"Well...not people, exactly. You met Hedwig, my owl, earlier. And that's Nathair trying to scare you." Harry pointed above and behind her head, which immediately snapped around to follow Harry's gaze.

"Eeeeep!" Hermione let out a very girlish scream.

"Don't worry, he won't hurt you. That's just his weird sense of humor. He's been begging me to bring someone here for months just so he could do that." Harry glared at him playfully, and he stopped terrorizing Hermione and went back into the vines on the ceiling. "There is nothing here that will hurt you as long as you don't try and hurt me. The animals, and even the tree itself, are all very protective of me," he said, proudly.

"So—so you made all of this with your magic?" She was still looking around in wonder, now also making sure there weren't any other things trying to play with her.

"Some of it," Harry started. He, too, looked around in wonder, remembering how it was in the beginning. "It was originally just a spot where nobody could see me with a couple of branches that made a nice seat. But then, as I practiced my magic, I think the tree absorbed some of it. Back in those days, I really didn't know how to control the flow of my magic, and I think the part that wasn't used in my spell got sent into the environment, which is what I think allows the tree to grow me some furniture. It was so excited to hear that we would be having company that it grew that chair a few hours ago, just for you." He pointed at the chair that Hermione was sitting on.

"The animals and bugs all like me because I make food for them. Except the spiders. They all left right after I started really getting into my magic." Hermione relaxed a bit after hearing that. "And the flowers and things started growing a few weeks ago as a birthday present from the tree."

"The tree gave you a birthday present?" Hermione asked, unbelievingly.

"Yep," Harry smiled. "But you think that a tree can't give people presents, don't you?"

"Well, it _is_ just a tree after all," reasoned Hermione.

"And that's just a chair you're sitting on. And my friends are just animals. Your first lesson is this: With magic, nothing is what it seems. The only limit is what you can believe in." At the mention of learning, Hermione snapped out of her wonder and looked at him.

"Right. Magic. So, I'm guessing that instead of a wand, you have a piece of chalk? That's unusual. And will I have to learn Japanese?"

"No, the chalk is just for when I make portals. And I don't really know Japanese. I just use that to help me focus. The portal is one of my harder spells, and it helps to use things in a symbolic way." Hermione recognized the beginning of an intellectual discussion, and focused intently on Harry. "Right. Well, the chalk helps me visualize where I want the portal itself to be, and drawing the line down the middle helps with actually opening it. Also, it has a practical use, since it seems to be hard to make a portal on something that is hard to write on. Cement is the easiest, dirt is very hard, and glass and water I have never gotten to work.

"Writing the Japanese character means that I don't have to think as intensely about where the portal goes, since in my mind, any portal that uses the tree symbol comes here."

"That makes sense, I guess."

"Magic is really just wishing—no, believing that something is true, and letting it happen." Harry thought back for a moment and decided where to begin. He sighed. _"I really hope I don't lose my new friend over this." _

Hermione heard him sigh. "What's wrong?"

"Hermione, you're just too annoying for me to teach." Harry watched as Hermione took it like a physical blow. "You're a know-it-all." _Flinch._ "You're bossy." _Flinch._ "And you have big gerbil teeth." _Snap._

"HOW DARE YOU!" Hermione screamed. Her face was red with anger as tears streamed down her cheeks. Harry felt her magic building up. "I THOUGHT YOU WERE DIFFERENT! YOU'RE SMART, YOU'RE FUNNY, AND YOU NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT MY—MY STUPID, BIG TEETH!"

"Great, now hold onto that feeling and use it to make some light. I know you can do it, you're magic's very strong right now," Harry said as he turned off his light spell.

Hermione did not choose to use a harmless light spell. She decided to cast a spell that would bother Harry. And she did this while her magic was uncontrolled and filled with anger. Harry was knocked to the ground and everything went dark for him.


	4. Apologizing

**Chapter 3: Apologizing**

When Harry woke up, he could hear someone sobbing nearby. He wondered where he was, and what was happening.

"Ugghhh..." He sat up and looked around, and remembered why he was unconscious on the floor with a crying girl in his tree. "Hermione? I'm sorry I said those things. I didn't mean them, you know. I had to get you mad so that your magic would come up. It only works if you're upset at first. I didn't want to hurt you. Really." Hermione stopped crying for a second and Harry waited for her to turn around and see how sorry he was.

"I can't leave," Hermione said. She didn't look at Harry. "You don't have a door."

"Please don't leave. Please, Hermione. I really am sorry." He begged her with his eyes to forgive him, but she wouldn't look in his direction. "Hermione?"

"I don't care. I want to go home. I hate you." Harry flinched.

"Please, Herm—"

"No. Just take me home," she interrupted.

"Okay. I'll take you home." Harry gave up. He would try to talk to her again in class tomorrow. "Where do you live?"

"At the corner of Ash Lane and Magnolia Crescent," she replied as she brushed away another tear. It was about seven blocks away from privet drive, and three from the park.

"Okay. I'll open a portal." He drew a portal on the wall and opened it up. "This will take us to the corner of the street."

As they went through the portal, Harry tried to reason with her again. "Please forgive me eventually, Hermione. I had fun tonight, until...well..." He trailed off, the final words unnecessary. Hermione had fun too, but she wasn't about to tell him that. Harry stood there a second longer until he closed the portal and began to walk towards the Dursleys' house.

"Where are you going?" she asked timidly. She was still angry at him, but she didn't want him doing something stupid.

"To my relatives' house," he replied simply as he stopped walking.

"Oh." She looked at him a moment longer and walked towards her own house.

Harry watched her leave, and went to Privet Drive and into his cupboard. He lay down on the hard mattress with its scratchy sheets. For the first time in years, he felt he deserved to be there.

x x x

"Hermione Jane Granger, where have you been? Do you have any idea how late it is!"

"Sorry Mum. Time kind of got away from me. I was with..." Hermione trailed off. Was Harry a friend? He really did seem sorry. And what he said did not go along with the rest of the day. If he was trying to prank her, wouldn't making her sit in the park alone as he watched from his awesome tree and laughed be enough? No. He explained things to her and gave her food and drinks. He seemed very happy to have the company.

Also, his insults were pretty standard for her. The only reason they hurt so much was because she thought she found a true friend, someone that could bring her life together, someone who just..._understood_ her. When she thought about it, it seemed like Harry picked the insults that she most likely was used to.

"...I was with a friend," Hermione decided. If Harry tried to make it up to her tomorrow, then she would eventually forgive him. He did get her to use magic, after all. And, she thought with satisfaction, he was so busy apologizing that he didn't notice what happened to him. As she thought about it, she felt happiness and satisfaction. Except for her fight with Harry, she really did have a wonderful time. And her spell, while completely random and unintentional, got him pretty good. She ran upstairs, laughing, and completely forgetting about her boiling mother.

Emma was getting worried about her daughter. She came in past dark, from who knows where, and had obviously been crying. She watched as Hermione's face showed anger, sadness, thought, determination, and finally satisfied happiness. She talked about having a friend, which relieved Emma to no end. She didn't think she had ever had many good friends at all, both because of her personality, and because people tended to either use or resent smart people. Then Hermione ran upstairs cackling, ignoring her mother completely. Seconds later, she heard her scream, "I'm a witch!" followed by maniacal laughter. Something was...up... with her daughter.

x x x

The next day, Harry got up and went through the cupboard portal to get ready for school. He looked into his mirror, the only object in his tree not made of wood, for his daily attempt to tame his hair, only to get a big surprise. He had two antlers sticking out of his head. He completely forgot about what Hermione's spell did. He tried to remove them, and received a second shock for the day—Hermione's spell was so strong that he couldn't remove it. _"She must have been really upset."_ Harry sighed. He liked Hermione; he really hoped they could make up.

He didn't think he could get away with an antlered day at school, so he cast an invisibility spell on them. After picking his favorite orchid for her and putting it carefully into his pocket, he teleported to the old boy's bathroom at the school. This bathroom had fallen into disrepair years ago and was off-limits to students, so Harry could appear there without fear of being seen as long as there wasn't a faculty member there for some reason. He made his way to his classroom and sat in the same spot as he did yesterday. Hermione's seat was empty and there were only a couple minutes left before school started for the day. Harry was worried. He was sure that she wouldn't pretend to be sick just to skip school and avoid him, would she? In fact, he didn't think she would skip school if she had smallpox. What if she was in the office, trying to get them to switch her to another class? That would never work, though. Every year Harry was put in the same class as Dudley, and every year, he went there on the first day to ask them to put him in a different class, only to be denied. It was as if they did it on purpose.

The door opened and Hermione walked in, barely a moment before the bell rang. Mrs. Hughes glared at her but said nothing as she sat in the same spot as yesterday, next to Harry. Harry looked to the side at her and caught her looking at him. They both looked away quickly, and each went to their own thoughts as Mrs. Hughes started on the class's review from the previous term. Harry and Hermione each tuned her out in favor of their own thoughts. Neither of them needed a review.

_"Oh, she hates me. She absolutely hates me. Wouldn't even look at me. Well, if I ever want to be her friend, I better get to work." _Harry slowly pulled the orchid he picked earlier from his pocket, and put it on the shelf under the surface of his desk. He opened a flower-sized portal and watched out of the corner of his eye as he pushed it through and into Hermione's desk.

_"Of course he's embarrassed, Hermione, you idiot, he probably thinks you hate him. He was apologizing over and over, and what did you say? I hate you, take me home. And he did just that! He was a gentleman about it! Any other eight-year-old would have stuck his tongue out at you. You should just forgive him the second he says it again, and you know he will as soon as you'll let him get a word in."_

Hermione was forced out of her thoughts when she saw movement in her desk. Remembering the time at her last school, where someone put one of the lab rats in her desk as a joke, she looked down in horror.

_"Great, she doesn't trust me at all now. She probably thinks I'm sending her a rat or a spider." _He heard Hermione give a small "Eeep!" and looked over at her. She was looking at the flower and blushing. She turned slightly and gave him a small smile. Harry knew then that everything would be alright between them. He decided to send her a note. _Friends?_ he wrote and sent to her. She fumbled with a pen and wrote back, _Friends._ He smiled.

Harry decided to show her just how strong her magic was. He waited for her to glance over again and caught her eye. He held the pen in his hand and tapped it against his antlers until Hermione understood what he was showing her.

She stared at him for a second, wondering why he was moving his pen like that. Suddenly, she realized that he still had his antlers, they were just invisible. She couldn't help it. She was about to giggle like an idiot. She raised her hand so quickly that Mrs. Hughes must have thought Hermione was going to attack her.

"What is it, Miss Granger? Unless you have a question that pertains to the matter at—"

"Can I—brghh—Can I use the loo?" Hermione covered her mouth with her hand to stop the laughter that was bubbling up. She was slowly turning red from holding it in.

"Well, go on then, Granger, I don't need my classroom smelling of vomit," Mrs. Hughes said desperately, misinterpreting her behavior completely. Hermione fled the room, trying to hold in her snickering as if it actually were vomit. Harry's time at the Dursleys' allowed him to hold in his laughter much more successfully than she did.

x x x

"Hey," Harry said as Hermione stood next to the seat across from him at lunch. "Wanna sit here?"

"Thanks," Hermione said. They both looked at each other in an awkward silence.

"I'm sorry about—" they both started at the same time.

"Go ahead," Harry offered.

"Sorry I overreacted." Hermione blushed and hung her head.

"Don't be. That was the point, right?" They looked away from each other and went back into silence.

"Why didn't you take the antlers off?" Hermione asked.

"Well, I tried, but I couldn't. You got me pretty good," he replied honestly.

"You mean you're stuck like that?" Hermione was stunned, and suddenly felt bad about what she thought was a funny problem.

"Well, I'm in a situation I've never been in before. Either you can't reverse someone's spell, or you are more powerful than me. In either case, you're the one who has to get rid of them."

"What!" She began to panic. "I can't do that, I've only done magic by accident! How am I supposed to fix that?"

"Just remember the feeling from last night and think of that while you wish for them to go away. Think of what I look like without them and they will go away. Hold on." He looked around, waved his hand twice, and his antlers popped back onto his head. "There. Now make them go away."

"But what if someone sees?" She looked around furiously, trying to catch the hypothetical person.

"They won't. I cast a spell so that people will conveniently ignore us," Harry replied calmly.

"Okay, then." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. After a few seconds she asked, "Did it work?"

"Not yet. It helped for me to say out loud what I wanted until it happened, why don't you try that?" he suggested.

"I want Harry's antlers to go away, I want Harry's antlers to go away," she chanted, and opened her eyes. Harry, now antler-free, was smiling at her as he took down his hiding spell.

"Good work. When I was starting out, I usually needed to say things three times." Hermione smiled and blushed lightly.

"Well, I'm sure it wasn't that big of a—"

"Hey, Potter! Is this your _girlfriend_?" Dudley, with two airheaded hulks behind him, came to torture Harry.

"No. Are those yours?" Harry gestured to his followers.

"What?" Dudley was not used to a Harry that did anything but get punched, so he was shocked when Harry not only deflected his barb, but insulted him in the process. "Shut up, Potter. Mum and Dad want to know where you've been. They thought someone had kidnapped you until I told them you were here yesterday. I've been doing your chores for the past six months, you know!"

Harry sighed. His cousin was such a spoiled whiner. "Well, I've been doing _yours_ for years now, so why don't we call it even? And it doesn't matter where I've been, just that I'm certainly not going back. Especially not just because you've been doing a bit of work. What have they had you doing? Testing the light bulbs? I'm sure that's a lot of work for you, even though it's nowhere near what they made _me_ do every day."

"Light bulbs? What are you on about? They made me put the dishes in the sink after I eat. Do you know how much work that is?"

Harry put his face into his palms. "Yes, Dudley. I know _exactly_ how much work that is. Is there anything else?"

"Well—you er—that is...Come back and do your work, Potter! That's all you're good for, anyway." Dudley folded his arms and smiled, as if he thought he won.

"No," Harry said simply, and Dudley's smug expression vanished.

"What are you smiling about, rabbit-teeth? Did someone give you a new book?" Dudley, obviously losing with Harry, moved on to the easier target, and saw her smile vanish as she looked down at the table to avoid Dudley's attention.

"Actually, she's smiling because she knows that in a few seconds, she'll be free of idiots," Harry said seriously.

"What are you talking about, Potter?" Dudley asked rhetorically. Harry stared blankly at him for several seconds. "Whatever. Let's get out of here," Dudley said to his goons, and they left.

"And that's why I live in a tree," Harry said, and Hermione giggled. "I should have just kept the anti-attention spell up. I don't think anyone really wants to talk to us unless it's to annoy us."

They both sighed. "You're probably right," Hermione said. "I thought that there was something odd about those people."

"What? You know him?"

"The Sunday after the week we moved in, his entire family came and welcomed us to the neighborhood when we were all at church. They were way too nice, and kept bragging about the things they had. Dudley kept complimenting my mum on her dress. It was...creepy. And it seemed like they were only there so they could say they go to church."

"And I suppose they just forgot to say anything about the freeloading orphan with no future that lived in...their house," Harry joked, not wanting to mention his cupboard in front of her.

"It must have slipped their minds." They both laughed. "You actually live with those people?"

"Of course not! No proper citizen would live in a tree!" Harry joked.

x x x

"I have to be home by dark tonight. My mum was pretty upset with me last night," Hermione said as they sat down on the chairs in Harry's tree.

"Sorry. I'm used to being on my own. Time doesn't really have an influence on my life, except for school. I eat when I'm hungry, sleep when I'm tired, and get up when I'm rested. Well, except on school days." Harry conjured some food for them to eat while Harry mentally prepared for what he was sure would turn out to be a long lecture on magic. "Right. To start things off, let me tell you a few things. First, magic is entirely based on your imagination and your belief that what you want to happen is possible. You have a better start than me since you've seen some impossible things. When I started, I just thought it might have been a possibility. It was really an act of desperation for me.

"I got most of my ideas from books—fiction, folk tales, and religion." Hermione's face lit up more than it already was at the thought of books. "Now you have to be careful, because usually stories put some kind of limitation on magic. For example, in many systems of belief, certain things will only work during certain phases of the moon, or if you have eaten a certain type of food lately. Now, if you try to do that spell, knowing it is the wrong phase or that you have eaten something, you will believe that to be an essential part of the spell, and it will not work for you. Or, if they say a spell is 'forbidden' and will permanently damage you, if you believe it will, it will."

"A psychosomatic effect." Hermione nodded in understanding.

"If that's what you call it. In any case, what you truly believe will happen is what you get. Now, I've never performed any kind of ceremony or forbidden spell, since I'm basically making it up as I go along. But if there were things like that, the actual effects might happen. So what I'm saying is, only ask for what you want to happen, and think things through before you do it. And under _no circumstances_ are you to try laser eyes. It does _not_ work like you think it will." Hermione winced, and Harry rubbed his eyes, obviously remembering the experience that caused him to give her that warning.

"Your first task is to remember what your magic feels like until it becomes instinctual. Practice making light come out of your hand," Harry commanded. "It helps to close your eyes and visualize what you want. Also, say what you want to happen repeatedly until it works." With that, Harry waited for her to get started and picked up a book he copied from the library. Instead of checking the books out, he would read a bit of a book to see if it would be useful. If it was, he cloned the book and took the copy home to keep. It also gave him the chance to use the cupboard under the stairs in one of the ways it was originally intended.

Hermione spent a few hours practicing until she could make a light with little effort, but she was still not up to the instinctual level that Harry wanted her to have.

"Okay, that's enough for today," Harry said as he placed his bookmark. "Any more and you'll start to get tired."

"I think I'm getting the hang of it, Harry. What are we going to do tomorrow?" Hermione asked, hoping that he would show her how to make portals. She got the feeling that was _very_ advanced, though.

"Your homework tonight is to think of stories you know with something like magic in it, and we'll make some spells out of that. Tomorrow I want you to practice your light again to warm up, and then I'll help you out with making your first spells." Hermione immediately went into thinking mode. "Try to keep it relatively simple, though," Harry added as he saw her look.

"I'll try my best," she said as she blushed. Harry had only known her for a day and already had her personality down. If he didn't say that, she probably would have come up with some impossible task that not even Harry could do. "Hey, before I go home, can you teach me a way to come and go from here on my own?"

"I actually planned on doing that since this afternoon. Give me your necklace and choose an activation word for it. When you say that, it will take you here, and if you are already here, it will take you home."

"Harry," she replied as she took off her necklace and handed it to him.

"What?" he asked after a short pause.

"Make the word 'Harry,'" she explained.

"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "That's too common. It has to be something you would never say, like 'kumquats in Japan.' Otherwise every time you say my name, you'll end up here. Or you'll leave when you talk to me."

"Kumquats in Japan it is," Hermione said, laughing a bit.

"Okay, then." Harry closed his eyes, waved his hand over the necklace, and gave it back to her. "All done. Say it and you'll be in your back yard."

"Bye, Harry," she said as she put her necklace on. "Kumquats in Japan!"

"Oh! I forgot to warn her. Oh, well. I guess she'll figure it out on her own," Harry muttered.

Meanwhile, Hermione was lying face-down in the pile of dirt she fell on. "Stupid Harry."

x x x

The next day, Hermione gave Harry's world another important, albeit minor change.

"I want to do the force, Harry!" Hermione said excitedly.

"Which force?" Harry was confused.

"You mean you've never seen _Star Wars_?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"No. Does that have something to do with astrology?" Harry had never watched TV or seen a movie. With the Dursleys, he wasn't allowed, and in his tree he had never considered it. Harry thought of TV as a waste of time, either news (which he had no interest in) or Things Dudley Liked (which Harry assumed had nothing to do with magic, and had no purpose except to occupy Dudley's time). The one time Harry had caught a glimpse as he was moving through the room to answer the phone (which the Dursleys did not want him to do, but would still punish him for not doing), it was a blaring, incoherent narrative about talking fruit that fought crime. Harry was surprised Dudley was allowed to watch it, since fruit most certainly did not talk. Then again, it was Dudley.

"No, silly. It's a movie," Hermione answered. "An orphan leaves the farm he lived at so that he can fight the evil empire using something called the force, which is kind of like magic but...well, it's different. The people that use it are called Jedi Knights, and they fight with a sword made out of light." Hermione obviously liked this movie.

"You saw this at a theater?" Harry asked, now interested.

"No, we have a tape of it at home."

"What does tape have to do with anything?" He was now massively confused.

"Are you saying that you've never watched TV or seen a movie before? Don't the Dursleys always have the latest technology? They seem like the type that has to outdo everyone they can afford to and then some."

"Yes, _they _have it. I think. But that is like the opposite of _me _having it." The conversation lapsed into an awkward silence for a moment, and then Hermione began her explanation.

"The video is stored on a plastic thing called a VHS tape, and you put it into the VCR, which goes into the TV. It's that simple." Harry sighed and ran his hand through his hair at her explanation.

"D'you think we could—well, perhaps we should—I mean—what I'm trying to say is—" Harry stuttered.

"Would you like to come and watch it, Harry?" Hermione smiled warmly to show that he would be welcomed in her house.

"Well, yes. That would be nice."

x x x

They used Hermione's necklace to go to her backyard, and walked in through the back. Harry felt weird. He was not welcomed in his _own_ house, and here he was in someone else's.

"Mum? Dad?" Hermione called, and got no response. "They must not be home yet."

"What do they do?" Harry asked.

"They're dentists," Hermione replied absently as she led them over to her TV and looked for the tapes. Harry sat down on her couch timidly.

_"Is this what a house is supposed to be like? It looks... it looks like a place where people would like to live,"_ Harry thought. The Dursleys' house felt cold and sterile, probably in part due to Harry being forced to clean the entire house repeatedly. The only other house he had been in was Mrs. Figg's, who babysat him sometimes when he was still at the Dursleys'. Her house was filled with cats and smelled of cabbage, so Harry didn't particularly feel like he would want to live there. But the Grangers' house was inviting. There were stacks of papers covering parts of every table, and by the door was a pile of shoes, tossed haphazardly upon each other. Harry loved it. It looked like there were actual living people in there, and they connected with their house in the same kind of way Harry connected to his tree, only less magical.

"Here we are!" Hermione put a tape into the machine.

"This is that tape thing?" Harry asked, still suspicious of a movie in a plastic box.

"Yes, now stop talking and watch," Hermione responded playfully.

They sat back and read the text that scrolled down the screen.

"Wait, why aren't you starting with the first one? And there's _four_ of them?" Harry asked incredulously.

"No, there's only three. And it starts on episode four."

"But—but that doesn't make sense." Harry argued.

"Well, the director wanted to make the first three when they have the technology to make the special effects they need for those movies. But that's going to be years from now, and everyone's waiting for them. Now hush and watch the movie." The two children then had an ordinary time watching popular movies and talking about the powers they wish they had. Of course, what wasn't ordinary was the fact that they could probably use those powers if they tried.

"Hermione, are you watching that movie _again?_"a voice asked from the other room.

"_Yes_, we're watching it again, but this time it's for research," Hermione defended.

"We?" her father asked as he came into the room, his wife trailing him. He vaguely looked like Hermione, but the woman could have been her older sister. They were obviously Hermione's parents.

"Research?" her mother asked dubiously.

"Yes, we were talking about—er—about..." Hermione trailed off in thought.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Granger. She just doesn't want to embarrass me. I've never watched TV, you see. Harry Potter." Harry put out his hand in greeting.

"Nice to meet you, Harry. You can call me Emma," Hermione's mother said, shaking his hand.

"And I'm her, father, Dan." He took Harry's hand as well.

"Well, it's nice to see that your new friend has some manners, Hermione," Emma said to her, then turned to Harry. "And you say you've never watched TV before? It may be mostly useless, but all children have to watch TV. It's the law." They all laughed, but Emma made sure to ask Hermione later why Harry had never watched TV before.

There was something odd about this boy. He was at the age where boys liked to watch cartoons all day, play with worms, and run around without a care for the house he was in. Harry seemed to be the opposite of that. You could tell by looking at him. He was very still, only moving when necessary. His clothes looked like they were picked out of a garbage dump, and they were definitely not the right size. But he carried himself with confidence, as if nothing would be a problem for him. And Emma, like all good mothers, knew a lie when she saw it. Today, she saw two. The obvious, fumbling, obviously-not-planned one came from her daughter, who had never before lied, as far as she knew (and it showed), and the smooth, polished one that was completely logical, and probably just as completely true. But Hermione said something about research. What could that be about? This merited further observation.

"Well, why don't I go and fix up some food for you two while you watch your movies?" She started to leave the room, but was stopped by Harry.

"That's okay, Mrs. Granger. I brought some things." She looked where he was pointing and saw a small feast of junk food. She hadn't seen that a second ago.

"Oh. I didn't see. Well, if you need anything, just ask," she said as she started to walk away.

"Harry, why did you do that?" Hermione whispered. "It's not that much of a burden for her; she was only trying to be useful."

"Sorry, Hermione," Harry started. "I'm still not really used to thinking about other people's feelings. But I conjured this because it will be healthier."

"Healthier! Are you mad? This is the worst sort of food you could possibly eat! Anything Mum would have given you would certainly have been healthier than this! It's almost a part of her job, you know."

"Well, that would be the case normally, yes," Harry admitted, smiling.

"Well then, what's so different about this case?" she demanded.

"The difference is nothing about me is normal." He grinned at his statement. "It's conjured food. It's transmuted from something, usually air, into a special recipe of mine that is basically perfect food—it's the ideal amount of vitamins, nutrients, minerals, and proteins to keep the body as healthy as possible. Then it's transmuted again to taste like the real thing does, and transfigured to look like it. The packaging is for appearance's sake."

Hermione was in shock. "You mean I've only been eating a little bit of your food, but it's the healthiest thing you can eat? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Sorry, I forgot again. And you still need to eat meat and fruit occasionally. For some reason, those are the only things that I haven't been able to completely replicate. It's mostly good, though."

"Wow, Harry. And you figured out the perfect balance thing just from reading about it? That's impressive."

"Actually there's a poster in the school cafeteria that says what you should eat."

"Oh. Well, still..."

"Anyway, I conjured so much so that you can keep the leftovers," Harry offered.

"Thanks, Harry!" Hermione dove into Harry's chest and hugged him, not noticing as Harry tensed up. "You think I'll be able to do it on my own someday?"

"Er—yes—probably, I think," he stammered.

Emma had been watching them whisper with interest, when Hermione suddenly shot forward and brought him into a hug. This too merited further observation. After she made a mental note about the way he stiffened when she touched him, she left them to their movie and walked away, deep in thought.


	5. The Way

**Chapter 4: The Way**

Harry and Hermione were sitting in the tree two weeks after the day they watched Star Wars. As Hermione practiced her magic, which was rapidly improving beyond Harry's expectations, Harry was thinking of ideas that he had gotten from watching Hermione's movies. After Star Wars, he admitted that watching videos was just as good of a source of inspiration, if not better, as the books were.

As Hermione turned to Harry to ask him a question, Harry met her eyes and felt a wave of emotion come over him—depression, anticipation, a bit of happiness, and a strange sort of emptiness ran into him like a truck. He stood, staring at her, until he realized she was waiting for an answer to something.

"What?" Harry asked, shakily.

"I _said,_ do you think it would be easier to make a jump go higher by using magic to push off the ground, or to lighten you so that you stay in the air longer?" Hermione practically yelled at him. Something was wrong with her, and it would start to affect her magic if it kept up.

"Well...that depends on the situation. Learn them both just in case. Pushing off the ground would look more natural," Harry calmly replied. He looked at her. "Are you okay?"

Hermione looked away. "I'm fine."

"Did you cast a spell on me?"

She looked back at him. "What? No. Never after that very first time. Why?"

"No reason, I guess." Hermione rolled her eyes, huffed, and went back to planning her spells.

"This is karma, Harry Potter," Nathair hissed directly into his ear as he slithered to Harry's level, hanging from the ceiling.

"I have told you before NOT TO DO THAT!" Harry hissed back, annoyed. Hermione was used to their friendly scuffles by now, and simply ignored them. "Now what are you talking about?"

"The way that can be shown is not the way. Telling you would defeat the purpose, and you would not learn how to read nature. You received a message; you're halfway there. Now you simply need to understand it," Nathair said

"You mean that weird feeling was a message?" Harry went into thought, but Nathair had one more bit of wisdom.

"You know this feeling as well. Use your memory, Harry Potter." With that, he disappeared back into the ceiling.

Harry began to think of something that he had in common with Hermione that would give us those emotions. _"Okay, let's see. I'll start with the most specific: emptiness. Well, that describes most of my life. I never got anything until I became a sorcerer. She has her family, who obviously love her, and they don't seem like they need money for something. They're both dentists, after all. Maybe their licenses are expiring soon. That would explain the anticipation. _

_ "But that seemed more like a good anticipation. We don't have anything coming up in school; I know she likes tests but panics every time. But that doesn't happen to me. In fact, time doesn't really have much of an impact on my life at all. Just Halloween, my personal bad-things-happening day, and Christmas, but I'm not with the Dursleys so I won't have to get up and cook. There's my birthday, but that's been completely ignored until this y—Of course! Her birthday must be coming up! Nathair said it was something I've gone through, too! That would explain some of the emotions, and she must not have had any friends to celebrate with, so that's what the negative feelings are."_

"It's her birthday," he whisper-hissed to Nathair, looking up and around to find him. He wasn't there. "Nathair?" he hissed a bit louder.

"Yesss?" Nathair popped his head out of Harry's shirt, and Harry actually screamed.

"DON'T DO THAT! Just DON'T!" Harry rubbed his forehead where his scar was, trying to calm down. Hermione looked up at Harry's scream, figured out what was going on, and rolled her eyes again. "So. Her birthday's coming up, isn't it?" Harry asked.

"Good. For a while I wondered why I even bothered setting you on the right path, but here we are," Nathair joked. Harry rolled his eyes, knowing since they met that Nathair was compelled to insult him at every possible moment. "You didn't feel that information, though. You logically found the most likely possibility, using the fact that it is something you experienced yourself, yes?" Harry nodded. "You will need to _feel _what others need without thinking. This is the largest difference between humans and the rest of existence. You are capable of amazing things, but you cannot see what is in front of you. At one point, you did it subconsciously, as all humans do at some point, even the ones without magic. You, however, did it at a relatively late age."

"What? When did I do that?" Harry could not remember what he was talking about.

"When you would feed the animals in the tree. Now you have fruit growing that they may eat, but before, you knew that there were hungry things that did not want to starve. So you fed them. That is why they like you so much. Now, I want you to go around to individual creatures. Some of them have needs, and I want you to figure out what they are by speaking with their hearts. Try not to use any logic. You will know when you have helped enough of them. Enough to learn, at least."

Harry looked around for something that he thought needed help. _"No. You're using logic already. Just find something you _know_ needs help," _Harry thought to himself. _"I just sort of need to...reach out."_ Harry looked around and saw a cat laying in the corner, which was unusual. Typically, the largest animals in the tree were mice, and they didn't like to hang around because of the risk of being eaten by Harry's friends. It was not unheard of, though. Once, in fact, there was a large black dog that stayed for a few hours, then left somehow, like a ghost. Harry had no idea how the animals came and went, except for the ones that belonged in trees, but it happened from time to time.

Nathair and Hermione separately watched Harry approach the cat, and Harry looked at it. As the cat looked up with fear at Harry, he cringed. The cat only had one eye; the other was covered with an angry red slash that must have been caused by another cat.

_"Ouch. That looks bad, but it should be pretty simple to heal. Just need to calm this cat down a bit." _Harry reached out to pet it, and it shrank from back from him. Harry cast a light spell to distract the cat while he healed its eye. The cat looked up at him and calmed down. Harry frowned. He could still feel bad feelings coming from the cat. _"But the eye is healed. What's wrong with it now?"_

"Do not use logic. Just use your feelings, Harry Potter." Nathair was tangled on the side of the wall, watching them.

_"Feelings. Right."_ As Harry pet the cat, he cleared his mind and just let it come naturally. _"The injury was a symptom, not the problem itself. This cat gets in many fights because there is no safe place for it."_ Harry picked up the cat gently and started to pet it.

"Good, Harry Potter. You're beginning to develop an aptitude for this. Continue practicing this and you will have a skill that no human has had for a long time, as far as I know. I believe this is because you have a caring for all things that not many do. But don't forget what started this in the first place." Harry gave him a blank look, and Nathair sighed. "Your human's birthday."

"Oh. Right," Harry hissed, feeling guilty for forgetting about Hermione while he was learning a new bit of magic. "I'll take care of it."

Meanwhile, Hermione was watching him as he healed and began to play with the cat. "Don't worry, you can live here for as long as you like," he said to the cat as he conjured a bit of fish and fed it to him. She suddenly felt bad about being snippy with him today. He didn't know it was almost her birthday. She didn't tell him for the same reason she never told anyone else—she was sure that one day she would see him with a group of people, laughing at her when they didn't think she could hear them. Harry would never do anything to hurt her on purpose (at least, now that she was in control of her magic). He was a completely selfless person, and would help anything that was alive. As Harry played with the softly mewing cat, she noticed something.

"Harry, what's that?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"It looks like there's something growing out of the tree. What do you think it is?"

Harry looked and saw the small growth coming out of the least-used part of the tree floor. "Oh, that. I don't know, but it must be something very complex or important, because it's been growing since I started teaching you magic, and it's hardly gotten bigger. I'm actually kind of worried about it. What if it's some kind of tree disease? We'll just have to keep an eye on it," Harry said.

_"He's even concerned about the tree. As a...creature, not because it's his house. I should never have doubted him,"_ Hermione thought, and went back to her spell-making.

Harry, however, would not rest so easily. _"What could that be? I'm going to_ _try and talk to the tree. I think I have enough of an emotional connection and history with it."_ He sat down and closed his eyes as he continued to pet the cat. As he tried to push his worry into the tree, he felt a gentle response. _"I've got it! Wow, that was pretty easy. The tree feels incredible. Old, and wise, like it knows everything but just doesn't care." _Harry suddenly saw himself as he saw an ant: small, insignificant, and one of a group so numerous that nothing he could do could possibly change the world. The tree could feel him right back, and sent Harry an impression that everything was alright, that the weird growth was something fantastic. Harry felt the tree's feelings about him and was overwhelmed. The tree saw him like a son, with the tree as his mother. Harry felt something that he had only seen at Hermione's house, something that he had only heard about, something that he was too young to remember having before. It was something that he once thought Dudley had so much of, but he now realized that Dudley had nothing but broken junk and an attitude that would have him dead or in jail before he was thirty. What Harry felt was love. It was beautiful, and Harry started to cry in happiness.

Hermione heard a sniffle and looked up. Harry was sitting on the floor with his eyes closed, petting a cat, crying, and smiling as if he had won the lottery.

"Harry, are you okay?" she asked, rushing up to him to see if he was hurt.

Harry looked at her and felt the same love, to a lesser extent, mixed with worry for Harry and the fear of rejection that she always seemed to carry.

"I've never felt better, Hermione," Harry said, smiling at her.


	6. Parentbirth

**Chapter Five: Parentbirth**

On September 19th, Hermione woke up to a room filled with flowers of all kinds and colors. Every inch of her room was at least one flower deep and if she looked close enough, she could see some new ones growing.

"Happy birthday, Herm—" Hermione's mother came into her room and was immediately speechless at the sight of the room. "Oh my God! Hermione, what is this?"

"It looks like flowers, Mum."

"Thanks. Where did they come from?" She continued to look around in wonder.

"I'm not sure, but…" She trailed off.

"But?" Emma encouraged.

"Well, I think Harry might have sent them to me," she said uncertainly, and looked around. "Here, there's a card."

Hermione picked up a card that was stuck to the top of a huge candy bar, and opened it.

"Well?" Emma asked.

"Yep. From Harry."

"What's the card say?"

"It says, 'Have some 100% genuine, sugar-filled chocolate. Happy Birthday from Harry.'"

"Okay, but did he send you the flowers, too?"

"I don't know who else would have."

"But how could he afford all of this? It must have cost a fortune!"

"Well…" Hermione was unsure if she should continue. "I think he grows them."

"His family has this big of a garden?" Emma wasn't sure what to think. Harry obviously didn't buy them. He was always dressed in rags and didn't seem to have a TV in his house. Emma had assumed that he came from a very poor background, but to have a garden that could support the amount and variety of flowers here, only to give them away to a nine-year-old girl? That meant they had money. And that Harry Potter was closer to her daughter than she had thought.

"Er—No…" Hermione bit her lip. "Well, actually yes. That is—"

"Hermione, what is going on? I thought that Harry was…well…very poor," Emma said, feeling a bit ashamed of herself.

"I'm not really sure I should…" Hermione trailed off in thought. "Will you promise not to do anything about it if I tell you?"

"Unless it puts someone in danger, I won't do anything," she stipulated.

Hermione stared at her for a moment, as if trying to tell if she was trustworthy or not. "Harry's guardians are the Dursleys," she said, as if that explained how Harry sent her a small field of flowers.

"Dursleys?" Emma paused to think. "You mean those horrible fake-nice people?"

"Yes. But Harry—"

"But they aren't poor at all. They seemed like they had quite a bit of money. In fact, they were bragging about it! In church! I know that a lot of people seem to miss the point of going to church these days, but those people were just there to look important to the neighborhood. And they have Harry walking around in rags?" Hermione frowned at that. "I'm sorry Hermione, but what else would you call them?"

"Anyway, he ran away," Hermione said quietly, feeling like she just betrayed her only friend's secret.

"He ran away?" Emma sat down on Hermione's bed and sighed. "Well, _they _certainlydon't seem to mind. How does Harry feel about that?"

"Like it's the best thing that's happened to him, and I think he's right."

"Where does he stay now?"

Hermione again thought of what story she should give her mother, and decided on 'true but vague.' "With some friends. He gets everything he needs, and the…owner of the place treats him like a son, he says."

Emma smiled for the first time in that conversation. "Well, that's good. Tell him if he ever needs to stay here, he's always welcome."

"Thanks Mum." Hermione hugged her mother in relief and happiness, realizing for the first time how lucky she was.

"You're welcome, dear. Now, that still doesn't explain how Harry got all these flowers and somehow got them into your room in the middle of the night," she demanded, not letting Hermione distract her again.

"Well, he has a sort of a garden there. I don't know how he grew so many so fast," Hermione said truthfully. "Or how he got them into my room…I'll have to have a talk with him about that," she said, embarrassed and a bit angry.

Emma couldn't sense any lies from her this time, even though it was much more suspicious. "Alright, then. Make sure you thank him."

"Yes, Mum," she droned in response.

"And happy birthday, dear."

x x x

Hermione spent most of her birthday with her family, but as soon as Hermione went to the tree that night, she tackled Harry with a hug.

"I can't believe you gave me a present! That's the first time anyone's ever done that that isn't family. I never even told you when my birthday was! Did my parents tell you?" She watched as Harry's brain deciphered her machine-gun speech.

"Er…no. I just felt that you needed me to surprise you, and so I did. Happy birthday, Hermione."

"Thanks Harry. It means more to me than you know," she said, trying not to cry. "Although I had a lot of explaining to do when my mum came in."

Harry winced. "What did you tell her?"

"That they were from you. I kind of told her that you ran away from the Dursleys, though. I said that you were living at a friend's place, the owner thought of you as a son, and you have everything you need. She said she wouldn't tell anyone."

"Oh. Okay," he said, unknowingly relieving Hermione's fears that he would think she betrayed him.

"One question, though," Hermione began.

"What?"

"How did you get that many flowers into my bedroom in the middle of the night without waking anyone up?"

"Flowers?" he asked. "Hermione, I didn't send you any flowers. I bought you a piece of chocolate. Flowers would have been a good idea, though."

"But—but my room was filled with flowers today," she exclaimed.

Harry looked off to the side and seemed to be having a conversation. "No, those were from the tree apparently. I guess it didn't think that a piece of candy was good enough," he said dejectedly.

"Harry, it was good. It was my first present ever from someone that wasn't my parents. Or…er…a tree," she reassured him. "But please tell me you didn't buy it using conjured money."

"No, I went by sewers and summoned any loose change that fell down. You'd be surprised how much of it there is."

"You went through sewers for me?" she asked.

"Well…yeah. I know it's kind of gross, but it was the only way I could—"

Hermione cut him off by attempting to hug him to death. "Thank you, Harry." She gave him a peck on the forehead. "So you were saying something about feeling it? You mean like telepathy?"

"No, but that's something we should definitely try." He wrote down something on a slip of paper that was on the table next to him. "This is my list of spells to learn. Anyway, it's more like feeling the emotions that a life form gives off and understanding them instinctually. From what Nathair says, it's practically impossible to teach."

Hermione looked depressed at hearing about another thing that Harry could not teach her. "Another thing?"

"Yes, but I think that you can learn it if you do it accidentally, so you might be able to learn it eventually."

Hermione brightened again. "Good. So what else is new?" she asked.

"Well, that thing in the tree has gotten a lot bigger. It's the size of a large dog now," he said as he pointed to it. Indeed, it had grown significantly in the past two days, and was now more than ten times the size it was when they first talked about it. "Whatever is growing, it's big and I don't think it's more furniture. Hey, what if it's a tree egg?" he asked, excited.

"Harry, those are called seeds. Or acorns," she explained in slight annoyance. "Honestly, how is it that you're so smart when it comes to magic, but something like this and your brain goes right out the front door?"

"But I don't have a door," he replied slowly so that Hermione could understand the simple concept.

"Why don't we just start working on that telepathy thing?" she suggested.

x x x

Harry and Hermione continued to make progress in all the spells they were working on, and Hermione eventually reached Harry's level, except for a couple of things, such as the gates and conjuring food. No matter how simply Harry tried to explain it to her, she could not make a gate. Harry suspected that she still didn't believe it was possible, even though she had seen him do it on many occasions. No matter how small the food, she could not conjure so much as a crumb. Hermione was beginning to get frustrated.

Halloween came before Harry knew it, and he was worried. For Harry, Halloween was traditionally a day where something either very good or very bad happened (though usually bad with the Dursleys), which made him worried. He spent the night before thinking he would never see Hermione again, and he would be forced to move back in with the Dursleys. Or maybe it would be the day he found out that there was no such thing as magic and it was all just a dream. Or what if the thing that the tree was growing really was a disease and the tree wasn't thinking properly? He was getting even more worried about that, because he could now hear something moving inside. So much was right with Harry's life that he did not think that it could last forever.

Hermione was still trying to figure out how to make gates (she had given up conjuring food, thinking it was another one of the things that only Harry could do), but after a point she couldn't take it anymore.

"Harry, let's go down to the park for a little bit. I need to take my mind off of making the gate," she sighed.

"Alright. Want to try making the one down there?" he offered.

"Well…I suppose it can't hurt." She took out her chalk and drew an oval on the wall, and wrote 'park' in Japanese.

"Remember that you're about to unzip a door. There will be something on the other side, just like turning a doorknob," Harry suggested. Hermione closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and drew the line down the middle. Harry silently smiled, and she looked in front of her.

"I did it!" she screamed.

"I noticed. What do you think you did differently this time?" he asked.

Hermione thought for a moment. "I think the difference was, this time I actually wanted to go somewhere, not just make a portal," she said happily.

"Well, there you go," Harry said. "I think you've got it. Now let's walk around the park to celebrate."

They didn't walk very far when they saw Dudley and his gang chasing some younger kids around. Harry sighed.

"So how should we deal with him," Hermione asked.

"He's a bully. He's really weak, but he makes himself feel stronger by outnumbering people and fighting people that are even weaker than him. Or people that will get punished for fighting him," Harry muttered. "So you know the obvious solution, right?"

"You want him or should I?" she asked.

"Try not to use any obvious magic. Make it seem like he's pathetic, get one hit in, and he'll run away screaming. Ready?" She nodded. They both advanced until they were close to Dudley. "Hey Dinky Diddums. Does your mum know her precious, well-behaved young gentleman is at the park chasing little kids around while they're outnumbered three-to-one?"

"Potter! I was hoping to see you. Dad said I could hurt you as much as I want next time I saw you." As Dudley was boasting, his former targets ran away. The rest of his gang came closer, expecting to see Harry and Hermione get crushed.

"Well, everybody makes mistakes. What he meant was that you could _try._"

"You think you could beat me, Potter?" Dudley laughed. "As if a shrimp like you could even touch me."

"Oh, there's no doubt in my mind that I could. But my apprentice here might go easy on you, and if she does, you might get a lucky hit in." With that, Harry sat down on the closest bench to watch. "Oh, and don't use your entire gang of blockheads on her. I'm sure you could beat one little girl on your own, right?"

Dudley's gang all backed up several feet to make space. "Of course, Potter. What's the hamster your apprentice in? Not having any friends? She already knows everything else."

Harry grinned. Any chance that Hermione would not want to hurt him instantly disappeared. "Magic, actually. And forget about what I said about her going easy on you. You just lost your fight, Dudley. I hope Aunt Petunia can stuff your face with food and make you forget about this."

"We'll see," Dudley replied, a little less certain than he was a second ago. He brought up his fists clumsily and looked at Hermione.

"Come on, then," Hermione said. She stood in the same position she was in before—calm and carefree, with her hands hanging limply at her sides. She looked very bored.

"Get her!" Dudley shouted, and pointed at Hermione. His gang didn't move, and just stared at him.

"She's just a girl! Get her yourself!" somebody shouted. Hermione started laughing, and that set Dudley off.

"I'll give you something to laugh at!" He brought up a fist and started running in her direction, and tripped over his own feet. Hermione started laughing harder, and Harry joined in, as Dudley turned as purple as Harry's uncle.

"Thanks, Dudley, that was very funny," Hermione said, still laughing. Dudley got up and ran at her again. He then inexplicably punched himself in the face.

"Ow! That hurt!" he said to his hand as if it betrayed him. The members of Dudley's gang began to shake their heads in disgust and left for something less pathetic. Dudley tried to punch Hermione, but she calmly walked out of his fists path. It was as if he was trying to punch through water.

"That wasn't fast enough, Dudders," she taunted.

"I'll get you for this! I swear!"

"Well, come on, then. I'm right here." Hermione started laughing again. "If you're not too distracted, of course."

"Distracted by wh—Ah! I'm on fire!" Dudley began patting his sleeves furiously, and ran out of the park screaming.

"Hermione? What did you do?" Harry was mildly worried.

"I just gave him an illusion that he's on fire. It won't hurt him, and it will disappear as soon as he tells someone what happened here." Hermione smiled, and waited for Harry to realize the best part of her spell.

"He'll tell his parents! He'll tell his parents that you started him on fire with magic, and he'll be punished for talking about magic. That's one of the only things they will punish him for! You're brilliant, Hermione!" Harry hugged her, and Hermione rejoiced inside. That was the first time Harry had initiated a hug with her.

x x x

After they took a quick walk around the park, Hermione opened a gate into the tree and they walked in to see the growth in the tree completely gone, and a woman sitting at the table and smiling at them.

She had red hair and green eyes that matched Harry's exactly. She looked vaguely like Harry's Aunt Petunia, only when she saw Harry she looked happy instead of poisoned. She stood up as they stared at her. She was completely unclothed except for vines of ivy that seemed to grow right out of her body and covered the essential parts.

"Who is she, Harry?" Hermione asked.

"Mum?" Harry asked desperately.

The woman smiled, nodded, and opened her arms, beckoning Harry to her. As Harry started to run towards her, Hermione grabbed onto him.

"Harry, that's not her. You know that!" she reasoned.

"No! It is her! I can feel it!" Harry struggled to break free of Hermione's grasp.

"Harry, I know that magic can do a lot of things, but one thing that all of our sources agree on is that the dead can't just come back to life out of nowhere. And she certainly wouldn't be waiting in your secret house that only two people know about. It's a trick, Harry," she whispered.

"She's right, Harry," the woman said. Harry went limp in Hermione's arms. "But she's also wrong. Please let me explain. I don't have much time.

"Thank you for watching out for my son, Hermione. A few months with you has mostly undone the years that my sister and her vile husband spent ruining him." Hermione looked suspiciously at her. "My name is Lily Potter. But this is not my body. Well, it's…inspired by mine, and is almost exactly the same. But I can only be in this body until sunrise, and then I'm going back to where I came from. After that, you can get the full explanation from the owner of my body since I don't really know what happened myself. I just know that it is the seventh Halloween since Harry was born. That's a magical number on a magical day. Inexplicable things are bound to happen, especially to you, Harry."

Harry spoke up for the first time. "So, you're like a ghost?"

"Sort of. But the particulars don't matter. The point is, I will be here until sunrise, and then someone else will come. Harry, you must remember that she is not me, even though we may look the same. But Harry, you can trust her with your life. Now come give me a hug." she begged Hermione with her eyes to let Harry go.

"If you hurt him, you'll regret it." She stopped holding Harry back and he shot into his mother's arms.

"I've missed you, my little boy," she said as she kissed his forehead repeatedly. "We've been watching every day, but it's been horrible to not be able to hold you, to guide you, to tell you that I love you."

"Nobody's ever said that before," he cried.

"Harry, listen to me." He stopped crying and looked into his mother's eyes. "If you choose to, you will be one of the most loved people in the world, and eventually there will be nothing you want that you don't already have. My sister and her husband have confused love with something else, and they've raised their son to do the same. That is something that too many people do. They don't love people. They love themselves, and their images.

"All you need to do is trust your instinct. I'm not allowed to tell you much, but everything will be alright. Just listen to your heart; it cannot be wrong. If something feels right for you, it is, no matter how…unusual." She looked at Hermione. "That goes for you too.

"Now, listen carefully, both of you. You both have very pure souls, and you will help a lot of people in your lives. You will have the best of friends, but you will also make enemies. These people will do their best to make you miserable and hurt. They will do that because they are jealous or afraid of you. Remember that, and you won't have as much of a problem with them.

"Now, I'm allowed to answer three questions you have about anything I know about, and then we can spend the rest of the night talking about family, and what happened during the time I was alive. Choose your questions wisely. Only ask it if you think it is important. I can tell you about anyone you are related to by blood at any time, so leave questions like that for later."

"I'm going to head home so that you two can have some privacy," Hermione said she stood.

"No, stay. It's alright," Lily said. "You two have already accepted each other as siblings. Unless you object, Harry?"

"No, of course not. And I really do think of you as a sister, Hermione." Harry gave her a hug.

"Oh, thanks Harry. And I think of you as a brother."

"Good. So stay a while," Harry said. Hermione sat down next to Harry. "Well, I guess my first question is, how come we can do magic but others can't? Are there others that can?"

"Well, there are people across the world that can use magic. As far as I know, none of them use magic the same way you two do. Most witches and wizards can't perform magic without a wand, and if they can, it's only specialized types, like how you teleport, which is called apparating, and your telepathy, which is called legilimency. You should learn occlumency, which is basically visualizing a wall that protects your mind so that others cannot use legilimency on you." Harry and Hermione had both gotten good at reading thoughts from each others' minds, but they never even considered a way to defend them. They trusted each other absolutely so weren't worried about it, but if there were other wizards, it was a skill they should learn.

"Most people, who we call muggles, don't have any magic at all. Hermione's parents and the rest of my side of the family are all muggles. Some people have had magic in their family for hundreds of years, and they are quite proud of it, and look down on muggles and muggle-born witches like Hermione and me. You will both have to be careful around them. They will make up a large amount of the people that will be jealous of you." She looked like she wanted to say more, but couldn't.

"There are magical neighborhoods and shopping districts, but someone will take you there when the time comes."

Harry and Hermione took a second to process the information before asking the next question. "Who killed you, and why?"

Lily sighed. He had to pick the hardest question possible. "How did you know someone killed us?"

"Just a feeling I got," he replied.

"A dark wizard named Voldemort killed us. The magical world was at war when we died, and he was the leader. He was one of the blood-purists that I warned you about. Most people were afraid to even say his name back then. However, a few people fought against his forces, the Death Eaters. Your father and I were two of those people, and we even fought Voldemort himself three times. We never beat him, of course. Nobody did. Well, almost nobody, but I'll get to that in a bit. We were some of the best fighters for our age, and Voldemort decided that we needed to be stopped. So he came to our house." She looked like she wanted to say something even more than the first time. "Your father held him off while I tried to take you and escape. You were just over a year old. I tried to get away, but they had put up a ward to stop us from apparating away. He killed your father and came upstairs where I was trying to escape. I tried to save you. I said he could kill me if he let you go, but he wouldn't do that. He killed me, and then the only good thing that night happened.

"He tried to kill you too, but his killing curse just bounced right off of you and hit him. You are the only person that has survived that curse. That's what gave you that scar. And then he was gone. Not killed, but removed from his body and left to wander the earth as little more than a ghost. Harry, you will meet him again someday, and he will want revenge. He is very powerful. You are also extremely powerful, Harry. I have only seen one person as powerful than you, and that was Voldemort. But you have to promise me that you will not try to fight him until you are ready. He has fifty years of experience behind him. Be very careful." She started crying, and Harry joined her. He knew there was a lot she was not telling him, but he didn't want to pry and upset her even more.

When they both calmed down, Harry thought of his third question. He looked very hesitant to ask. "Go ahead, Harry. I'll answer whatever I can," his mother encouraged.

"Does…does it hurt to die?" he asked.

She sighed. "No, Harry. Not at all. It often hurts a lot, right until you die, and then the pain goes away." She started to cry again, and she held onto Harry tightly as he joined her in tears. Hermione felt more awkward than ever as she started crying too, until she was pulled into a hug by both Harry and his mother.

"So I'm out of questions, then?" Harry asked when they had all calmed down.

"Yes. But I'm not the only one who knows anything, and you will have plenty of people that will answer your questions. I may be the smartest person in my class, but there are other people who know more than me in certain things. Your father was brilliant at transfiguration. He could turn himself into a stag." She smiled again as she started talking about happy things. "He looks exactly like you, Harry. Like a mirror image, except for the eyes and the scar."

He flattened his hair down to cover it up. "Don't feel bad about it, Harry. Although you may hate it someday, just remember that it is…that it is a part of who you are. Anyway, we met at school. I hated him at first, because he was immature and annoying. Not everyone is as mature as you are Harry. You're very well-mannered for your age. Anyway, he eventually grew up, then we fell in love and got married, and a few years later, you came along." She smiled at Harry.

"How did you first find out about magic, Mrs. Potter?" Hermione asked. "You said that the rest of your family wasn't, right?"

"That's right. And please, call me Lily. Well, it's a bit of a funny story. In fact, it was almost the exact same way you found out, Hermione. One day, I jumped off of a swing and floated down, and a wizard that lived nearby saw me, and called me a witch." They all laughed. "He told me all about magic and we were best friends for years. He is one of the first people you will meet at school, and he will probably hate you. He is a very lonely, bitter man and he hated James. You look exactly like your father, and that will not endear you to him at all. But find a time to tell him that I forgive him, for everything, as long as he remembers two things when the time comes for him to choose: our last conversation and his deal with the headmaster. He'll know what I mean."

"Okay, Mum," Harry replied as he wrote it down. "Tell us about the school. What's it called?"

"Sorry, Harry," she started. "I can only tell you things that involve people that are related to you by blood, and cheat a little by giving you messages to tell certain people. I can't give you any names or tell you specific things, except for those three questions you got to ask me. I had to agree to that to come here. I think I made the right decision." She smiled at Harry.

"I think it was right too," Harry agreed.

"I can tell you, though, that the school was founded by an ancestor of yours, Godric Gryffindor. When you go to the bank to get the money we left you, make sure to get access to that vault too. And try to keep that information to yourself. He's quite famous, you know."

"He is?" they asked.

"Well, he was the first headmaster and one of the founders of Britain's best school of magic." Lily grinned at their expressions.

They began talking about less important, but still very interesting things, and eventually Hermione had to leave.

"It was nice to meet you, Mrs.—Lily. I hope we'll meet again."

"Oh, of course we will. But not for a long time," she said. She waved goodbye as Hermione left.

"Harry, there's one more thing that I have been permitted to tell you while I'm here," Lily started hesitantly.

"What is it?" Harry was nervous at her tone.

"I'm going to tell you where babies come from."

One embarrassing talk later (which Lily's state of dress did not help), Lily suddenly changed the subject.

"Harry, I know all about the history of your relatives, but I also know a little bit of the future. I was a seer when I was alive, and I saw some things that will help some of your future decisions. I left a book in the Gryffindor vault which will help ease your mind about some things. Look into that, and any doubts you have will be cast aside."

"If you were a seer, how come you didn't try to change anything about that night?" Harry asked. There was no need to clarify which night he meant.

"Often, seers are unable to make predictions about their own lives. True seers, that is. There are people that can make predictions, but that is usually about the weather or if a boy likes you." Lily blushed as she remembered the many times the girls in her year asked about that. She always saw some things she didn't want to, and it was almost always about someone they would not even meet for years.

"Oh," Harry said simply. "Tell me about Dad some more."

Lily told her son about the other most important man in her life, until she realized that he fell asleep on her arm. She looked at Harry's wooden clock and sighed. It was almost time for her to go. Oh, well. It was a night she knew neither of them would forget in the slightest detail.


	7. Family

**Chapter 6: Family**

Harry woke up on November first to his mother's face.

"You're still here! Does that mean you get to stay forever?" Harry shouted in joy.

"Sorry Harry, but I am only using your mother's image. I am not her," the person replied.

"What? Then who are you?" Harry slowly backed away.

"Can you not see? Do not look only with your eyes, child," she said serenely.

Harry used his special sense and realized something impossible had happened. "You're…er…the tree?"

"Close enough, Harry. I assume you will embrace your humanity and be unable to continue this conversation until you give me a name?" she teased.

"Yes! You need a name!" Harry said seriously. "Let me think…"

Hedwig and Nathair gathered around them, waiting for the bomb to drop.

"How about Willow?" Harry suggested happily.

"Willow?" She was confused. "But I'm an oak."

"Yes, but Oak sounds like the name of an old man who yells at kids for going on their lawn," Harry reasoned. The tree wasn't sure how to take that comment. "Willow is a much better name for a girl."

"But I'm a tree, not a girl. And I'm older than your grandparents."

"Just be glad he didn't start with 'Mrs. Tree,'" Nathair quipped, and Hedwig nodded sadly. Their friend just shouldn't be allowed to name anything. Everyone in the room was sure that Harry would someday have children that would be too young to realize they were about to be traumatized for life.

"Well, you look like a girl to me. And you only look about ten years older than me. Unless you can come up with another girly tree name?"

She looked very unhappy and resigned. "Great. I'm going to be known for years as Willow the Oak. That cluster of ashes across the field is going to be intolerable."

"Yay!" Harry cheered. "I'm beginning to think that maybe you guys are going to force me to come up with boring names."

"Yes, because Mr. Snake, Owly, and Willow the Oak are sooo wonderful," Nathair hissed as he crawled up Willow's leg. "If you're going to play his new mother, you better start his punishment."

"Nathair!" she scolded. "You know how those…subhumans treated him."

"Subhumans?" Harry asked. "Is that even a word?"

"It is now. They gave up their humanity a long time ago," Willow said firmly.

"Some might say they embraced it," Nathair said.

"Now, don't tell me that with all of the time you've spent with Harry that he has not convinced you that not all humans are parasites?" she said to the snake that was now a few inches away from her eyes.

"He has, actually," Nathair admitted reluctantly. "But he is highly unusual among any type of human."

"That he is." Willow looked at her new foster son proudly.

"How can you talk to him? Are you a speaker like me?" Harry asked.

"He's still an idiot, even if he is smart for a human," Nathair complained.

"Hush, you. I know for a fact that you crave his attention." If snakes could blush, Nathair would have. Willow turned back to Harry. "No, honey. I'm a dryad. I can communicate using human speech, as well as the way everything that lives does. Have a seat, and I'll tell you what's going on."

Harry sat down as she began to pace gracefully.

"One of the ways a dryad is created is when a person forms a unique connection with a tree. You saw beyond what your eyes did, and recognized that I was a living thing, not just a growing decoration. That is the first step. Second, I needed some magic to get a humanoid form. Most of this came from you, but what pushed it over the edge was when Hermione started coming too. Such happiness and positive emotions come from both of you. You are unusually happy with each other." She pulled a loose twig off of her vines. "Anyway, the final thing needed, the one which is most frequently absent, is a second person that thought of me as a living, thinking being. That, Harry, was your mother."

"Really?" he asked.

"Yes, Harry. She spent much of the second half of her life as you did your first half. Her parents were killed in a car accident when she was fifteen, which is where Petunia got her story for your parents. Lily stayed with Petunia and her new husband at Privet Drive, but she spent most of it in misery. Just like you, she came here and talked to me. The exact spot you first sat in, in fact. I was quite surprised.

"Because she formed such a connection with me, I was able to take her image and give you a day with her. Halloween is the time when the world of the living and the world of the dead are closest. It was the seventh Halloween since you were born, and that is a powerful combination. I was able to bring her soul to an empty body for one day before I took my place in it."

"Isn't that necromancy?" Harry asked, wary. In everything he had read, this was one of the things that was most often considered dark or forbidden.

"Yes, but only a bit." Harry was surprised by her frank answer. "Well, was I doing a good thing by letting you meet her?"

"Yes, but—"

"And was anyone hurt by it?" she asked.

"I suppose not," Harry admitted.

"And that's something you need to realize, Harry. There are no such things as 'good' or 'bad' magic. It's just a force, like fire or water. You can use it to cook food and water plants, but you can also burn down a village or drown someone. It's all about whether you want something harmful or helpful." Harry went into thought. "Now, if I wanted to bring your mother here permanently, that would be bad. She would be taken away from her family and friends that have already died, and would never be able to go back, not even when you died and joined them. It would be removing her happiness for all eternity. In the big picture, eternity is a long, long, time. A day is nothing."

Hermione opened a portal into the tree. As she stepped in and saw Willow, she assumed that Lily had not left.

"Oh! You're still here! Does that mean you'll be staying?" she asked excitedly.

"No, Hermione," Willow said sadly. "Like she said yesterday, she was just using this body for the day. Introduce us, Harry."

"Hermione, this is Willow, the dryad of this tree."

"Willow? But aren't you an—" Everyone turned to look at Harry. "Oh. Sorry you had to go through that."

"Don't worry about it, Hermione," she said as Harry pouted. "It's nice to finally meet you in person."

"And it's nice to finally talk to you," she replied. She blushed as she said, "I must admit, I didn't know if I believed that Harry was really talking to you."

"That's okay, Hermione. Most people wouldn't even consider it. That means you're actually pretty high up on my list of human ratings," Willow joked. They all laughed, even if Hermione did it a bit awkwardly.

"Willow was telling me that my mother used to sit in the same spot as I did, and treated her like a person, so that's why she looks like her, and that's how she was able to bring her here for the day. Apparently our magic and my connection with her is what created her."

"Harry, you're making very light of the situation," Willow interrupted. "The birth of a dryad is extremely rare. So rare, in fact, that in ancient times we were said to be the children of gods."

"Really? Wow," Hermione said. "How do you know this? Do you know a lot of things?"

"Hermione, I know everything a dryad needs to survive and keep her tree safe, and then everything I learned in the past hundred years or so of my life. Every type of being has what humans call a collective unconscious—knowledge that is given to them at birth that they need to survive," Willow explained. "Humans, however, seem to ignore this part of themselves. Just like they ignore everything that they cannot see, read about, or measure. One of the downsides of technology.

"From what I understand, it cannot be fully denied, but it can be ignored. That is why there are so many symbols that occur separately throughout human history. Before the Nazis used it, the swastika was a symbol of peace and love throughout Asia, and of evolution or progress of the human race. Ironically, the Nazis reversed it so that, in some parts of the world, it symbolized the deterioration of humanity. Then there's things like snakes being evil (No offense)," she said to Nathair, "crosses, the All-Seeing Eye or Eye of Providence. All kinds of things. These are results of your collective unconscious trying to tell you something."

"What are they trying to tell?" Hermione asked. The two humans were now very interested in the conversation.

Willow laughed. "When I become a human, I'll tell you if I figure it out. A tree has no use for those things."

"But you said you understood it all," Hermione said.

"I said I understood the needs of trees and dryads," she defended. "I have no idea what humans are thinking. Or rather, what they aren't thinking, but should."

"But you were talking about all of those things…" Harry argued.

"Only because someone used to read books while sitting under me a few decades ago. He was not magical, so he could not allow the birth of a dryad, but he was still there quite often. Once in a while, he would bring friends, and they would talk about psychology."

"So there are books about this?" Hermione asked. "We should check that out when we go to the library, Harry."

"Okay, Hermione," Harry absently agreed. "In the meantime, can you tell me what my mother was like when she was younger, Willow?"

Willow rolled her eyes as she thought of where to start. A dryad was born because of his nearly unique connection with her, and all he could think of was his mother. She wasn't sure whether she should find it cute or insulting, so she decided on cute. He did deserve it, after all.

x x x

Hermione sat in class on Tuesday, wondering where Harry was. It was unusual for him to be late. In fact, he was usually the first person in the room, including the teacher. Class had started ten minutes earlier and he still did not show up. Perhaps he was sick.

x x x

"And manifestation?" Harry asked Willow.

"Er…what's the context?" she asked.

"Symbols occur in all kinds of psychic manifestation," Harry responded. He had pronounced it 'puh-saitch-ic.'

"It's pronounced 'sai-kick,' Harry. The P is silent. And a manifestation is a physical embodiment of an idea or force. For example, a dryad is a physical manifestation of the spirit of the tree," Willow explained.

A portal opened and Hermione came in.

"Hermione? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in school?" Harry asked.

"I could ask you the exact same question, Harry Potter," she started. "_I_ left during lunch so that I wouldn't miss anything. You, on the other hand, have been here all day, and it doesn't look like you are planning to go in at all."

"Well, I realized yesterday after we went to the library that I learn more on my own than I do in school. It's the same with you, except that you don't want to admit that you are smarter than the teachers. I'm learning things that are useful to me personally at a higher level than the students two years older than us. Did you know this is university-level reading?" He held up _Man and His Symbols_. "People ten years older than me are reading this. Sure, there are some words I don't know, but Willow can help me with that. And I don't always understand it, but I get the impression most people don't."

"You're getting it better in one day than most people do after several months, Harry," Willow agreed.

"Well, that's good, but what about the things we're supposed to be studying? You need those too," Hermione reasoned.

"I'm not going back, Hermione," Harry insisted. "Besides, the Dursleys will realize that they can get their tuition money back. I'll only have a few months left anyway."

"Well…" Hermione started slowly. "I can ask my parents if they'd be willing to pay for you to—"

"No, Hermione," he interrupted. He looked at her sadly and sighed. "I can't accept that. That offer means so much to me, and I know you're just trying to look out for me, but that's just too much. I talked this over with Willow after you left yesterday, and she agrees with me to an extent."

Hermione's head whipped over to Willow. "Is that true? You think this is a good idea? I thought you were supposed to act like a parental figure for him, not support this…this travesty of an idea of his!"

Willow looked back calmly at Hermione. "Hermione, one of your faults as a person is that you have absolute faith in a failing system. That's not too bad as faults go," she added when Hermione glared at her. "School is mostly a place to learn to take orders, sit in orderly rows, and pay absolute attention to your superior. It was made to train people for their mundane jobs, where they will use few of the skills they learned in school. Harry's destiny does not lie in a cubicle, or even a corner office on top of one of those tall metal buildings. Neither does yours, Hermione. You have a beautiful mind that is only dulled by going to school. Do you remember your first conversation with Harry?"

"Yes, I remember it well." she glared at Harry, who smiled guiltily.

"Not the witch part," Willow said. "You were talking about Shakespeare."

"Yes, how did you know that?" Hermione asked.

"Harry has always told us everything about his life, even before he knew anyone here could understand him. It was the way he compensated for not having anyone to talk to. Anyway, you were excited when he knew what your name was from."

"Well, he was the first person that knew the name, as far as I can remember."

"And you assumed he learned it from a class, but he read it on his own. Your teacher didn't even recognize your name."

"Right…" Hermione was beginning to think that she was going to lose this argument.

"From what I can tell, humanity is currently in a stale, unmoving state. Sure, there is new technology every day, but people are increasingly being valued as money-movers rather than thinkers or artists. New developments in technology are no longer new ideas; they're ways to do the same things faster or easier. Your society, and from what Lily told me, magical society, reflects that in the state of the next generation. They are mostly lazy, privileged children who think they deserve to get things handed to them for no reason. They will mostly grow up to be of little value to society. Their lives will not change much after age twenty-five or so. The only valuable in their lives will be the numbers of children, divorces, and health problems they have, and how much they are paid per year. There is no place for art or philosophy there. There are people, such as your parents, who strive to better themselves. But they are rare. Think of these things, Hermione, and tell me which system is the travesty."

Hermione was shocked. "Well, his marks—"

"Are useless numbers that show his ability to memorize inane facts, and will be not only useless, but also detrimental to his life as a wizard. As you have seen, magic thrives on the imagination, and living in an environment of conformity does not allow for good results. From what Lily said about the magical world, you and Harry are both way above the level of most adults, and meet the level of raw talent of the most powerful ones, and that will only rise. Provided you are in the right environment, of course."

Hermione admitted that she had lost. "So you're never coming back?" she asked pitifully.

"I'll still see you every day, Hermione," Harry assured her. "You'll still come, right?"

"Of course, Harry. You'll need a spell to keep me away," she said, feeling like the moment of his departure from his life she had always expected was finally coming. A single tear crawled down her cheek.

"Hey, you okay?" Harry asked. He didn't know she cared about school this much. "It's not like you'll never see me again, right?"

"Promise?" she asked.

"Of course," he replied. "Hey, we should make a spell that will let us always stay friends."

They looked at each other for a moment, and Willow watched in interest. "What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

"Well…I don't know really, just an idea…" he trailed off.

"Okay, let's do it. But what exactly would it do?"

Harry went into thought. "It should let us know how the other is at all times. That way, if one of us is feeling bad, we can cheer each other up."

Harry's excitement began to bleed into Hermione. "And we can send each other messages that only we can hear! That shouldn't be too hard to do."

"And we should be able to let the other see something we are looking at if we are apart. Hmm…I don't know how we would do that…"

"I've got it, Harry. We can look through the other's eyes! Like watching a TV!"

"Oh, that's good. I wish I thought of that."

"Harry, I have one more idea…" Hermione seemed hesitant.

"Well, go on, then," Harry said, thinking they had the beginnings of an excellent idea.

"Do you know about blood brothers?" she asked nervously.

"Er…it's when two boys have the same parents," Harry said.

"No. It's when two people who aren't related but think of each other as siblings cut themselves and shake hands so that they share the same blood."

"Really? You think of me as a brother?" Harry asked, and she nodded. "Well, I feel the same. I mean—that is—I think of you as sister, not a brother."

Willow watched them hug and thought they had planned something that would be good for both of them. Having only had blood for a few days herself, the only thing she knew about its use in magic was the protection that Lily gave to Harry. She figured that anything that could give them even more protection was good. She had no idea that two highly powerful and highly unqualified children with a history of abnormal magical occurrences happening to them were planning to do something unbelievably stupid and dangerous that could potentially kill both of them and destroy their souls. She smiled warmly at their excitement.

x x x

"Mum?"

Emma Granger could tell that her daughter's question would be either difficult or confusing and nonsensical, as she had been lately.

"Yes, Hermione?" she asked warily.

"Is the British educational system really just a tool for producing mindless drones who have nothing better to do with their lives than make money by doing menial tasks so they can have useless belongings and set bad examples for their children who will be even more lazy and selfish, only with none of the skill that their parents have, effectively halting the progress of human civilization indefinitely?"

Emma looked at her daughter in shock. Where was she hearing these things? "Well, I think that's taking it a bit…far. Education these days is mostly focused on getting people ready for their future jobs, and yes…I think there's less of a focus on the arts as there should be…Hermione, where did you hear that?"

"Harry's mum took him out of school and is basically home schooling him with mostly independent study. I don't think she likes human schools very much. She thinks that people should just learn everything they think is important, and she seems to like books a lot, which is unusual, since they're made out of dead and shredded trees. I didn't think she would appreciate that, I'll have to ask. I know I wouldn't like books made out of my friends' skin…" she mumbled as she wandered off to her room.

Emma was in a mild state of shock. _"Human schools? Shredded trees? Books made out of people's skin? What the hell was up with that? I'm going to have to talk to…whoever Harry is staying with,"_ she thought to herself. _"Hermione's been getting weirder and weirder every day since she met Harry, but this is borderline surrealistic."_

She went upstairs to Hermione's room and listened at the door.

"We're definitely going to need blood, and the full moon will be the best time for the ritual, it will be more powerful that way. I wonder if we could do it in a magical place as well. One of us could open a portal to Stonehenge or Machu Picchu…" she said to herself, as if ticking off the items on the shopping listfor a dinner party she was planning.

Emma knocked on the door. "Hermione?" She heard footsteps and the door opened a crack.

"Yes Mum?" Emma almost screamed when she saw Hermione's face. Her eyes had an excitement that looked at home on a serial killer, and she was wearing a grin so wide that all of her teeth could be seen.

"Er…What are you doing, Hermione?" she asked warily, hoping her daughter wouldn't murder her.

"Me?" she asked, and her face snapped to a cute, gentle smile. "Why, I'm just helping Harry with some…homework of his. You know how good I am at—hehe—homework."

"Yes…" Emma said slowly. This was beyond enough. "Open your door right now, Hermione Jane. You have some explaining to do."

"What do you mean?" she asked nervously.

"Either open the door or come out. Now." Hermione slowly opened the door.

"What's going on with you, Hermione? Ever since you met Harry, you've been saying weird things, we hardly ever see you anymore except at night, and I have no idea where you go, except that it's with Harry and his mysterious guardian that I've never met, and who apparently doesn't like 'human' schools and has something against paper. They apparently have no connection to the outside world in their house, you came home today talking like some kind of radical, and I heard you just now talking about blood rituals and magical portals to Stonehenge. And then you come out of your room with the face of a madman! Explain. Now."

Hermione suddenly looked very guilty. "I can't."

"Excuse me?"

"It's a secret, and you wouldn't believe me if I told you," she explained. Her expression turned into a murderer again. One that was about to be executed. She swallowed. "How about I show you and Dad on Saturday at Harry's place for dinner?"

Emma sighed. Whatever was going on, it was something that Hermione really did not want her parents to know about. Something that she thought they would hate her for, but she was willing to show them. "Is whatever it is dangerous?"

Hermione looked uncomfortable. "Maybe a little."

Emma sighed. "Is it illegal?"

"Not as far as I know…" she said uncertainly.

"Alright, but it better clear up a lot of things, Hermione." She kissed Hermione on the forehead and walked away.

As soon as her mother was out of sight, Hermione slammed the door, locked it, and drew up a portal.

"Harry! Problem!" she shouted.

"What? Are you alright?" he asked, starting to panic.

"My Mum knows something's up! She kept asking me what was going on with you and me, and I think she overheard me talking about our ritual!"

"Okay, well then let's explain it to her," he reasoned.

"I told her that they can come here for dinner on Saturday." Harry stared at her.

"Are you insane! I don't think that the best way for them to find out is by going through a glowing hole in reality into a giant tree that is sitting inside of itself in a body that looks like my mother at a table that is alive. You think that's the best idea!"

"Well, they'll certainly believe anything we say after that…" she said uncertainly.

"Oh my God…" Harry put his face in his hands.

"Willow, you're going to have to act more like a parent to Harry when they come."

"You don't think I do now?"

"YOU LET HIM DECIDE THAT HE SHOULDN'T GO TO SCHOOL ANYMORE AND LIVE IN A TREE INSTEAD!"

"Hey, what's wrong with trees? Besides, I let him decide that because it was logical and everything we talked about was true. I don't believe he's getting a proper education where he is now."

"And you're going to have to wear clothes on Saturday," Hermione demanded. "My parents might be able to take a lot of things, but a mostly naked woman is toeing the line."

"I tried to get her to, but she won't," Harry said. "I gave it up as hopeless."

"Why should I have to cover myself with uncomfortable, scratchy strangling devices? You already know what's underneath and it's not like I'm completely exposed."

"I don't know what's underneath, and I don't want to, thank you," Harry said in exaggerated disgust. "You're my mum's twin, remember?"

"Just one night," Hermione begged. "Please?"

"Fine. But nothing too constrictive. Harry conjured a blanket for me."

"It wasn't a blanket, it was modest!" Harry defended.

Hermione looked at Harry. "Harry?" she asked nervously, almost whispering.

"What is it, Hermione? You don't have to be so nervous. We're going to be blood siblings, remember?"

"If they hate me and never want to see me again, can I stay here?" she asked.

"They won't do that, Hermione." Harry declared. "They're good people. You don't have to worry about that."

Hermione looked at him with the most pained expression he had ever seen and he sighed. "If they lose their minds, you can stay here until they find them again."

"Thanks Harry." She hugged her future brother.

x x x

At 11:45 on Thursday night, a few minutes before the moon was exactly full, Hermione snuck over to Harry's tree and he opened a portal to Stonehenge. Hermione told Harry about her magical landmark idea, and Harry was all for it. Willow stayed as close to the portal as she could without actually crossing, since she couldn't leave the shade of her tree. While her tree was certainly big, its shade did not reach across the country.

They stood in the center of the ruins and Hermione got out the piece of paper they wrote the steps for the ritual on.

"Okay, so at exactly 11:48 and fifteen seconds, we start the ritual. You say something about what the ritual is supposed to do." Hermione said. "Then we each cut our palms with a silver dagger that you have conjured. Got it?"

Harry held up the dagger.

"Then we hold our hands like we are arm-wrestling and each say a bit about how much we mean to each other and that we never want to be apart. Finally, we heal the cuts on each other's hands. Did you come up with a healing spell?"

Harry looked insulted. "Of course. That was one of my first spells that was actually useful. Did _you _learn a healing spell?"

"Yes, Harry. It was one of my first spells, after all." She stuck her tongue out, and they both laughed as they got into position. "Twenty seconds."

Hermione stared at her watch, and eventually nodded at him.

"Okay…this ritual is to let us become family, and never drift apart. It will bind us closer than actual siblings and will let us know when the other is in danger or upset. With this, we will be able to show each other our inner most thoughts," he declared.

They each cut their hand and held them together.

"Harry, since we've met, you've been my best friend. I keep waiting for the moment that you wake up and see how bossy and bookish I am. But now I think that you understand those things about me, and accept them. I don't think that we'll ever stop being friends, and I don't think I'll regret being your sister."

Harry smiled at her. "Hermione, I know that you're bossy and a know-it-all, but that's what makes you you. The only thing I have ever really wanted in my life is family. Thank you for becoming mine. You're a wonderful person, and I certainly won't regret becoming your brother."

They separated their hands and drew a line down their sibling's cut, healing as they touched it.

"Well, I don't feel any different," Hermione said. "Do you?"

Harry shrugged. "Not really."

Then both their worlds went black.

x x x

"Severus, I cannot expel a student for actions that you let your own get away with no punishment whatsoever. Mr. Weasley _will_ be punished, but not in any way I can imagine you deem appropriate," Dumbledore said. He was beginning to realize that his headaches happened to coincide with his two most trusted colleagues being in the same room for more than five minutes. They had been arguing for three hours now.

"I know not what you speak of, headmaster."

"Albus, I know for a fact that Marcus Flint did the same thing in his first week here. And he's a second year!" Minerva McGonagall said.

"I'm well aware of the fact, Minerva, but that doesn't change the fact that punishment for this lies with the head of house of the student involved. I hope that you won't refuse to punish him just to get even with Severus," Dumbledore said, not needing to say that it was not a suggestion. "Severus, you need to keep the Slytherin students to your own standards if you are going to be threatening those of other houses with expulsion."

"But Headmaster—" Snape's whining was interrupted by a wave of magic that almost took them off of their feet. Dumbledore did not notice the fire starting on Harry's recording instruments as they were in a closet across the castle, covered in thick blankets to drown out the sound of the alarms that had been sounding non-stop for the past several months.

"My word! What was that, Albus?" McGonagall asked.

"I don't know, but it was not caused by anything at Hogwarts," Dumbledore said as he checked the instruments that were still in his office. "Nothing was recorded here."

"Hogsmeade, perhaps?" Snape suggested. He may have been a petty hypocrite, but he knew how to act in a potential crisis situation.

"No. The monitors at Hogwarts reach past the borders of Hogsmeade." Dumbledore went to the map of Britain that was hanging on the wall. He had not needed to use this one in years. "Stonehenge. It came from Stonehenge."

Everyone in the room paled at that. If that was what the wave of magic felt like after traveling over 600 kilometers, it would have been moderately incapacitating at best at the point where it started.

"Severus, check on Diagon Alley. Minerva, you're in charge whilst I am gone," he said as he took off his Hungarian Horntail slippers and put on more respectable shoes.

"Gone? Where are you going at this hour?" McGonagall asked.

"To the Ministry. They will be in a panic about this, and it's best if a clear-headed individual goes." He threw floo powder into his fireplace, said "Ministry of Magic" clearly, and hopped in.

McGonagall sighed. She should probably make sure that nobody was taking advantage of the situation and causing mischief. Gryffindor was the most likely, so she started there.

x x x

Willow was in a similar state of panic as Harry and Hermione collapsed and a wave of magic like none she had ever felt before blew her onto her back. She slowly got up and saw the two children lying unconscious on the ground.

"Harry? Hermione?" she called, to no response.

They were about five meters away from the edge of the portal. If she hurried, she could carry them one at a time before she started to feel the effects of being away from her tree. Bracing herself, she sprinted out of the portal to get Harry. She ran as fast as she could, but was already feeling weaker. She picked up Harry and ran back to the portal, stumbling as she finally reached it. She looked at herself. Her skin was wrinkled so much that she looked almost as old as she was. Her nails were yellowed and chipped, and her hair was pure white. The vines she wore as clothing were starting to brown. As she watched, everything was slowly going back to normal.

"Ughh…" she heard from behind her. Harry was beginning to stir.

"Harry, wake up!" She slapped his face lightly to bring him around.

"What?" He opened his eyes slowly. "Hermione! Where's Hermione?"

Willow pointed through the portal at Hermione. "You have to get her, Harry. I can't go out twice."

But Harry was already on his way before she even finished speaking. He picked her up, and she mumbled something about feeling funny as she started to wake up.

"Hurry back, Harry," Willow shouted to him. "We need to get out of here."

When Harry reached the portal, Willow took Hermione and Harry hurriedly closed the portal.

Just a second after the portal closed, several pops echoed throughout the stones standing in the field. A team of witches and wizards came into existence with their wands drawn, looking around as if expecting to be attacked. Deciding there was no danger, they put their wands into their holsters.

"There's nothing here, Dumbledore," a stern-looking middle-aged witch said.

"Then the persons involved have already left. Someone should look for traces of residual magic," Dumbledore said as he looked around. "Ah! A clue, Madam Bones."

Several of the people ambled over to him, where he was examining the ground.

"Blood and a silver knife," Madam Bones said. "The blood looks to be burnt or something. In any case, we won't be able to find out anything from it, except that it was left here. What about the knife? Have you ever seen a design like that before?"

"I believe this is the image that muggles have of ritual daggers," Dumbledore said. "It's also the full moon, and at Stonehenge. A stereotypical scene for a ritual of some sort. Someone here was raised by muggles but not educated in the wizarding world very well."

"So you don't think it has anything to do with the Dark Lord?" Madam Bones asked.

"Few people, especially among his followers, are aware that Voldemort was raised by Muggles." Everyone except Madam Bones was shocked. "No, this seems more like something done by underage wizards. Very strong ones. How did the residual magic scans go?"

"Well, there were two people, and they stood in the middle there," an Auror said. "They performed a very complex spell that seems to be of their invention, which caused the wave, and it apparently worked better than they intended, because they were knocked out by the wave they caused."

"Interesting. So the wave was an unintentional effect of the spell, not the goal of the spell itself?" Dumbledore asked.

"Exactly. Then a non-human, but extremely magical creature picked one of them up and carried him over there." He pointed to one of the standing stones. "The residual magic leads right up to the surface of the stone. It's as if a hole opened up in it and they walked through. Then the wizard walked back and got the second one. Then they somehow left."

"They apparated?" Madam Bones asked.

"No, it seems they simply…disappeared. No traces of any magical transportation that I have ever seen." He shrugged.

"You say there was magic used on the stone?" Dumbledore asked him.

"Yes, in the shape of an oval."

"A sort of door shape?" he asked.

The Auror cast a spell at the stone and a blue light appeared where the residual magic was. "I suppose you might call it that."

Dumbledore turned to Madam Bones. "I think the Department of Mysteries should handle this. Despite its muggle mystique, Stonehenge has magical properties that are mostly unknown to us. For all we know, it could have been used as a transportation hub of sorts long ago."

"I'll get them on it right away," Madam Bones said.

"Then I shall make my way back to Hogwarts." Madam Bones nodded at him.

After apparating to the gates of Hogwarts and making his way to his office, Snape approached him. "It seems everyone in Diagon Alley felt it, but instead of feeling burnt or drained like they should have, they reported much…odder…occurrences."

"Such as?" Dumbledore asked. This was quite a curious situation.

"They said they felt…" Snape gave him a twisted, sarcastic smile. "'An incredible presence of…love.'"

"Love?" Dumbledore asked, his eyebrows raised.

"Yes. Love. Everyone there was quite…eager to share their experience with me." Snape shuddered.

"How odd," Dumbledore said as he went off into thought.

x x x

Harry had immediately fallen right back to sleep and Hermione was not moving at all except to breathe. Willow was getting concerned. They had been like this for hours with no changes at all. She had no way to take Hermione back to her house and into bed, and her parents would not take kindly to her being somewhere that wasn't her bed at four in the morning. She was just about to consider something drastic when she noticed they had moved. Harry and Hermione were now holding hands. Willow thought they might be waking up.

x x x

Harry opened his eyes and saw nothing but black. He could see himself when he looked down, but there was nothing else. He did, however, feel like there was something new inside of him. He considered the feeling, which reminded him of Hermione, and he remembered what happened.

"Hermione?" he called into the darkness. There was no response, although the new feeling in his mind twitched slightly. "Hermione, can you hear me?"

Like a distant echo, he heard Hermione's voice. "Harry? Where are you?"

"Hermione, I can barely hear you. And I can't see you. I can't see anything at all, actually."

"Neither can I. Keep talking. We'll just follow the sound of our voices."

"Okay." Harry began to walk in the direction he heard her last. "What do you think is happening?"

"I don't know. We've had spells not work before, but nothing like this ever happened." Hermione said as she went closer to Harry.

Eventually they found each other. The world instantly came back to them as soon as their hands touched. They were both on the floor, holding each other's hand.

"Are you two okay?" Willow asked nervously.

"Yes, we're fine," they answered together. They looked at each other in shock.

_"I wonder how this will work?"_ Harry thought.

"I'm not sure. Perhaps it will come naturally, or we'll have to sort of practice with it," Hermione said out loud.

Harry and Willow stared at her.

"What?" she asked.

"Hermione, nobody said anything." Willow said.

"I was thinking about how it will work," Harry started. "But I didn't say it out loud."

Hermione clapped her hands. "Great! That means that we just need to work a bit on control and we'll get it working."

_"We should start working on a way to keep our thoughts to ourselves,"_ Harry thought.

Hermione looked at him and he got a confusing thought that was impossible to interpret and started to give him a headache.

"Ow! Think in words, not pain," Harry said.

"Sorry, Harry," she said out loud.

"Have either of you tried that Occlumency thing Lily told you about?" Willow asked.

"No," Harry said. "I guess we better get it down quick."

"Sounds good. Hermione, aren't you supposed to be at home and in bed?" Willow asked.

"Oh no!" Hermione looked at her watch. "It's almost 3:00! I have to go. See you later, you two."

Hermione left through a portal into her room, but Harry still felt the warm feeling he got whenever she was in the room.

x x x

Harry and Hermione spent Friday experimenting with the idea of having someone's mind inside of your own and figuring out how Occlumency worked.

"Lily said it was simply visualizing a wall around your mind," Willow said. "That shouldn't be too hard; you both have very good imaginations."

"She said this was something that is common knowledge among witches?" Hermione asked. For the first time, Harry realized that when Hermione said things like this, she did it on purpose—her own way of being a feminist while not making it seem obvious or overbearing. Harry also could feel that she really wanted him to challenge her on it, and she was simultaneously frustrated and proud of him. She had a set of very sarcastic remarks ready for anyone who did call her out. Harry never really thought about her as someone with a sense of humor. She was always either excited about learning or withdrawing so that people would not hurt her. If she said the funny things that ran through her mind out loud, she would have plenty of actual friends. The ones that saw the serious, studious Hermione would only use her for help with something and then say things behind her back. She was really just hurting herself.

"I got the impression that it was more like a specialty—like if you need to learn how, it is accessible, but most people don't even think about it," Willow said.

"So most people learn it through someone else or from a book, right?" she asked. "So there isn't really any difference between shields. That means that if we make a wall around our minds, anyone trying to get through will instantly try breaking through the wall."

"I see what you're saying, I think," Harry interjected. "If we make a huge military base that looks impossible to get inside, with all kinds of traps and barbed wire, they will either give up or waste their time trying to get past it, when really the part they want to get to is already on the outside, hidden under a bit of grass or something."

Willow smiled. Her Harry was so smart, and he had found a challenge in matching Hermione's mind.

"I was just going to suggest the hidden in plain sight bit, but the distraction is brilliant, Harry!" Hermione praised, excited. "I also think that we should have a way that we can get through each other's defenses if we have to talk. Like a secret knock on the door or something."

They both went into spell-making mode and worked on their occlumency. Harry spent his time making a horrific landscape filled with things designed to put fear into the souls of anyone that so much as glanced in his mind. He concealed the true entrance to his mind, which was also filled with more realistic traps for the people that were smart enough to figure out his trick, underneath a dirty, slightly burnt welcome mat. He resisted the urge to cackle madly as he did this.

Hermione smiled at Harry's lunacy as she created her own mindscape. Hers was a bit more subtle than Harry's. It was a somewhat inviting cabin at the far end of a field. As the mental invader approached the cabin, it slowly became farther and farther away. The person could walk for hours and only end up farther than when they started. The secret was to pick a blade of grass and whistle with it, and the house would not move.

Harry and Hermione tried to look into the other's mind and try to get past the defenses. Hermione only lasted a few seconds before she came out of his mind, crying in fear. Harry and Willow spent ten minutes calming her down, and then Harry tried breaking into Hermione's mind. Knowing that he was basically walking into a trap, he started towards the house. As he did, he noticed it getting farther away, and grinned. Hermione was brilliant. Hermione heard his thought, and the grass and sky blushed for a moment. He was in her mind, after all. He looked around for unusual features in the environment. He saw none, and left her mind.

"What's the trick?" he asked.

"You have to pick a blade of grass and whistle with it before you can go inside. Then there are some surprises in there, too." Willow saw her smile, and noted that it was almost exactly the same as the one Harry had earlier. How could children be so innocent yet so cruel at the same time? She decided not to think about it. Humans in general were puzzling to her.


	8. It's A Witch!

**Chapter 7: It's A Witch!**

On Saturday, Hermione began her day by imagining all sorts of horrific scenarios that could happen later. She was scheduled to bring her parents to the park where they would meet Harry, who would then open a portal to the tree. Hermione wanted to open it herself from her room to show how good she had gotten, but Harry thought that might not be something they would appreciate. Also, Harry thought it would be more like a night out if they actually left her house.

Meanwhile, Harry was exhausting himself conjuring clothes for Willow.

"It's not a casing, it's a regular shirt!" Harry said, exasperated. "I did research! This is the kind of clothing my mother would have worn, and you have the same body as her."

"Research, Harry?" Her son's solution to anything he didn't know about was to head to the library. At least he got magazines instead of a dictionary this time. "You checked out three magazines and looked at the models on the covers. I don't think that your mum would have been reading any of these."

"Why not?" he asked.

Willow held up the magazines. "Knitter's Magazine? Pregnancy & Birth? Good Housekeeping?"

"What's wrong with that? Those are all things mums do," Harry defended.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh, you better hope Hermione didn't hear you think that."

Harry winced. "Well, she did now, in any case." They were getting better control, but it had only been two days and they still let an occasional thought slip through.

"You deserved it! Maybe next time you won't try to dress me."

"Hermione was the one who wanted you to wear clothes, remember? I don't really care," Harry said. "In fact, she doesn't care either. It's just that there's already so many things her parents are going to have trouble accepting…"

Willow sighed in resignation. "Fine. What do you want me to wear?"

Harry held up the magazines. "Your choice."

"Ughh! The woman on the knitting one is three times my age, I _am_ the house, so there's no keeping necessary that doesn't do itself, and I'm not pregnant! Why would you even get that magazine?"

"I can change the sizes," Harry said, ignoring Willow's annoyance completely.

"Harry, get Hermione here right now. If she wants this so badly, _she_ can be the one to make me some clothes," Willow demanded, just as a portal opened and Hermione came through.

"I got the feeling I was needed here."

"Make me some clothes, and keep him away from anything related to it," she said, pointing at Harry, who was rolling his eyes.

Hermione, not knowing anything about fashion, did only marginally better than Harry. Willow reluctantly chose clothes and Hermione conjured them.

"Just make sure that you have them on and they stay on when we get here," Hermione said, and went back to her room, closing the portal behind her.

At 5:00, Harry left to go to the park and meet the Grangers. Hermione was suddenly nervous than she had been all week, and Harry could feel it bleeding into him. Hermione and her parents were on their way.

"Hermione, where is Harry's house, exactly?" Emma asked.

"It's just a few blocks ahead," she said nervously.

They walked in an awkward silence through Little Whinging, Hermione staring straight ahead, Emma staring at her, and Dan glancing between the two, confused. He was told a few days earlier that they would be having dinner at Harry's house to discuss something important, but he did not know what—just that it involved Hermione somehow and that Emma did not like it.

"There he is," Hermione said lifelessly.

"Hermione, why is he here? I thought we were going to his house, not the park."

"We need him to let us in."

"That's what doorbells are for," Emma said.

"He doesn't have one."

Emma rolled her eyes. "So we'll knock."

"I mean he doesn't have a door," she said as they approached Harry, who was sitting on a bench watching some birds. "Hi, Harry."

Harry must not have heard or even felt them coming, because he jumped when Hermione put her hand on his shoulder.

"Er, sorry about that, I'm a bit nervous," he said as he greeted Hermione's parents.

"Harry, why are we in the park? Hermione said we were going to your house." Emma was getting very suspicious, but even more afraid of what she would find that night. Her imagination invented all kinds of horrible scenarios, but none of them were even close to the truth.

"Er—right—well, come this way," he started. "Just remember, everything you will see tonight is real." He led them over to a wall at the park building and started drawing on it with a piece of chalk.

Emma had had enough. "Harry, what's going on? I really hope you didn't bring us out here to watch you draw on—oh my God…" She stopped talking as Harry opened the portal. Harry walked through without hesitation and Hermione followed, pulling her parents behind her.

"C'mon, it's alright," she said as they reluctantly stepped through.

While the Grangers were looking around the tree in awe, Harry was busy glaring at Willow as she hurriedly got dressed. Harry motioned for her to shake hands with them when she finished, and she approached the stunned parents.

"Hello, I'm Willow, Harry's guardian," she said as she shook each of their hands. Oddly enough, that was what knocked them back into being capable of speech.

"But you can't be older than sixteen! That's no age to be having your own children, let alone adopting them!" Emma said.

"I may only look like a teenager, but I'm actually eighty-six," Willow said, secretly glad that she took seventeen-year-old-Lily for even younger than she actually was. If the other trees knew she was glad to seem young, she'd never hear the end of it.

"Eighty-six!" Emma asked. "That's ridiculous."

"Mum, Willow is a Dryad. She's the spirit of the tree," Hermione said.

Emma turned to her, remembering why they were there in the first place. "Hermione what is all this? How did Harry draw a hole on the wall that opened into a tree? And how is all of this incredible stuff possible?" She looked around. "I mean, look at that! That table is alive! You said you would explain everything. Start."

Suddenly Hermione had no idea what to say. She had been preparing herself all week, and now she was standing there like an idiot, with her mouth opening and closing like a fish. She felt Harry giving her a mental knock on her occlumency shield, and she opened her mind to him.

_"Tell her about the first day,"_ Harry thought to her.

_"Thanks Harry,"_ she thought back. Hermione quickly composed her thoughts.

"Remember after my first day of school?" she asked her parents.

"Yes. That was a very weird day. You wanted to know whether or not I was a sorcerer," Dan answered.

"Well, that's because I am," she said. "Well, I'm obviously not a sorcerer, I'm a witch."

Harry snickered.

"Well, this idiot sat next to me in class and recognized that I had magic, and he said that he would train me in how to use it."

The Grangers were speechless.

After a while of being stared at, Harry decided to keep going. "So, I tried to teach her everything I knew. She's much smarter than me, so she caught up pretty fast, and now we're sort of learning off each other."

"And when did you find out about…about magic?" Emma finally was able to ask.

"I found out that whenever I was angry or scared, I would do unusual things. I finally realized that I was doing magic, and after thinking some things through, I noticed that the Dursleys didn't like the mention of anything unusual or that could be considered magical. They also didn't like me or my parents. So I figured that they knew I was a sorcerer, and my parents were too"

"And what sort of things can you do?" Dan asked.

"Ask Hermione to do anything and she can usually do it," Harry said. He decided that they wouldn't freak out if they saw Hermione do anything.

"Can you fix that broken vase, Hermione?" Emma had dropped her favorite vase and it broke into too many pieces to fix.

Hermione wore a confused expression. "I thought I did. I put it right back where it was, and there wasn't so much as a scratch."

"Hermione I dropped it on Tuesday."

Hermione blushed, realizing that she had in fact restored it to its exact condition, then slipped up and admitted that she broke it. "Oh. Well. I can fix it. You won't even notice it was ever broken."

Emma narrowed her eyes. "Apparently not. So show us something now."

Hermione considered what she should do.

"Do one of the spells you came up with," Harry suggested. The Grangers were in either complete shock or acceptance of Hermione's abilities. Probably a bit of both.

"Oh, I don't know. You pick something," she said to her parents.

"Can you draw a hole in the wall like Harry did?" Dan asked.

"Of course! That's the only way in here," she said proudly as her parents looked impressed.

"Actually, you can also teleport in, but I don't think you ever learned that; you just went straight to portals," Harry said. "I haven't done that in a while, now that I think about it."

"Why don't we continue this conversation over dinner?" Willow suggested. "Hermione, you can set the table."

Hermione got her hint right away as they moved over to their new, longer, table.

"Okay, watch this," she said to her parents as she conjured the plates and silverware.

"Hermione! Is this my grandmother's china set?" Emma asked. It had gotten lost when they moved, and she was heartbroken over it.

"No, but it's the same design and everything. It's impossible to tell these from the originals. You can take them home when we leave."

"Wow, that's incredible," she said. "It won't have the same sentimental values as my grandmother's did, but it will have a whole new value." Everyone smiled as they sat down.

"What does everyone want to eat?" Harry asked.

"Well, what do you have?" Dan asked.

"Anything that you can imagine. At least, anything I have had before. I've never had duck before, for example. You wouldn't want your duck tasting like carrots or something, would you?" Harry asked rhetorically. "And you can have any kind of food, and it will have a perfect nutritional value. No fat or bad things in it at all."

"Lasagna!" Emma screamed, and blushed when everyone looked at her. "What? I like it, but it's so fattening."

Harry conjured a large plate of lasagna for her. "Well, that's the point, isn't it? What does everyone else want?"

After Harry conjured food for everyone except Willow, they began to eat. Emma noticed Willow sitting there and asked her about it.

"Aren't you going to have anything, Willow?"

"I'm a dryad. As long as my tree is healthy, I am too."

Emma blushed. "That's right; we were just talking when I got distracted."

"Nothing to worry about; it's a lot to take in. To make a long story short, Harry sat in my tree when he was teaching himself to use magic. He recognized that trees are sentient beings and formed a connection, a sort of friendship with me. By pure coincidence, Harry's mother did the same thing when she was seventeen. Because of that, I was able to use the magic that Harry was almost constantly giving off to come into existence with his mum's image. I also control the growth of all the furniture in here, and the basic structure of the place."

Emma was confused. "So why Willow? I thought this was an oak." Willow, Hermione, and it seemed a few animals that Emma just noticed were lurking near the table rolled their eyes and looked at Harry.

"Harry thinks Oak is an old grumpy man name. Willow is much better for a girl, he says." Hermione obviously was used to Harry's habit of naming things…stupidly.

"But trees are androgynous," Emma argued.

"Yes, but Harry has absolutely no consideration for other people," Willow joked. "And I guess the name has grown on me."

"Was that supposed to be a pun?" Harry asked. "And you guys think _I'm _bad."

Emma took a while to get it. "That reminds me, don't dryads traditionally wear clothes made of leaves or something? You dress very…Hermione-like."

"Well, she thought it might be easier on you if I wore these choking hazards. Which will _never_ happen again, do you understand?" she said to Hermione, who rolled her eyes.

They talked about magic and gave the Grangers a basic idea of what was going on. They were glad to hear that Harry got to spend a day with his mother. They may have been very suspicious and apprehensive about that night, but they really liked Harry.

"Well, I think it's just about time for us to get going," Emma said. "Thanks, Harry, for teaching Hermione about magic, and just for being her friend. It means a lot to all of us."

"Of course. Hermione can make you a portal to your house," Harry said as he waved goodbye.

Hermione made them a portal to their living room, and the Grangers were surprised when they saw that it did not lead to the park like they expected. They walked through, and Hermione closed it behind them.

"Why didn't you just do it from here?" Dan asked.

"Well, we thought it would be better—y'know, if—if you saw Harry do it first," she said, and burst into tears as her father drew her into a hug, followed immediately by her mother.

"We always knew you were special, Hermione, but we never thought it would be something like this," Emma said. "Did you think that we wouldn't want you or something silly like that?"

She nodded miserably from her place in Dan's chest.

"That would never happen, Hermione. Ever. I promise." She tightened the hug, and let Hermione have a purging cry.


	9. An Unbelievable Tale

**Chapter 8: An Unbelievable Tale**

The years passed, and the two mages learned many different things. Hermione went to school and learned for them both. She lent Harry her history notes, and he would have them read by the time she had to go home. For anything that could potentially be used in a magical application, Hermione would waste no time and tell Harry her idea through their bond, which they now had tight control over. They always could tell how the other was feeling, and could send thoughts to each other no matter how far apart they were. They kept their occlumency shields up and 'knocked' on the other's if they wanted to talk. Some parts of the ritual had not worked as well as they hoped, though. If they wanted to see, hear, or smell what the other person was, they would have to put all their concentration into maintaining the connection, making it hard to keep up for more than a few minutes and impossible to multitask with.

Whenever the Grangers went on vacation, Harry was invited with. He went all across the world with them, and portaled back to his tree at night to spend time with Willow. Harry got along with her parents better than ever after the truth came out about magic. So much that when they were offered a chance for a better practice in another town, they turned it down. Sometimes they would give the two young mages ideas that had never so much as crossed their minds before. One of the ones that Harry thanked them constantly for was the idea of flying on a broom. Hermione was only interested from an academic standpoint, but Harry loved to fly. His broom was painful and awkward to sit on for long times, and if he went too fast (which he usually did), it would begin to tremble and smoke until Harry stopped flying. After he went through several brooms that could not handle him, he decided that he would stop flying until he could design a broom that would be able to keep up with him. He never thought about slowing down or making his turns smoother.

On September 22, 1990, the Saturday after Hermione's eleventh birthday, both their worlds were once again changed with a knock on the Grangers' door.

Emma answered it to find an older woman with her hair in a tight bun. "Hello," Emma said.

"Good morning. Are you Hermione's mother?" she asked.

"Yes, that's me."

"Then might I come in to talk to you and your daughter?" she asked. "It is a matter of great import."

"Yes, come in." She led the woman into her living room. "Dan, could you go upstairs and get Hermione?"

After they were told about magic, Hermione made a closet that contained nothing but a portal to Harry's tree so that her parents could find her if they needed.

"Do you mind if I ask what this is about?" Emma asked.

"It concerns your daughter's future education. It will be easier if I explain to your entire family," she said as Dan and Hermione came down the stairs.

As soon as Hermione saw her, she felt that she was a witch. She knocked on Harry's mental door. _"Harry! There's a witch at my house," _she said, and felt Harry come through the portal.

"Hello. You must be Hermione," the witch said.

"Yes, that's me."

"Well, Hermione," she began, "have you ever noticed that you sometimes do things that seem…odd?"

The woman was confused as the entire family laughed.

"Yes, every day," Hermione said. "But do you mean magic specifically?"

"You know about magic?" she asked, shocked.

"Yes, of course. Ah, here's Harry."

"Harry—not Harry Potter?" The woman suddenly felt as if the tables had turned and she was the one that would see things she would not believe.

"Yes," Hermione confirmed as he walked into the room. "How did you know it was him?"

Harry was the spitting image of his father, right down to the smile. His eyes were the same green that his mother had, but otherwise they were identical. McGonagall always thought that Harry lived with Lily's muggle relatives so that he would not know about his fame. She was even there when Dumbledore dropped him off. Perhaps that was just another of the headmaster's deceptions so that only he would know where Harry was.

"Harry Potter!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea you were here! And I was under the impression that you had no living relatives on the Potter side."

"I don't. How do you know me?" Harry asked.

She pulled out a sheet of parchment. "But it says right here, Hermione Potter, age eleven."

"Hermione?" Emma sighed. "What did you do now?"

The two children looked at each other for a while and nodded.

"I think I may have accidentally adopted Hermione," Harry said slowly.

Emma put her face in her hands. It was always something with these two. "We'll talk about this later."

Realizing they were off the hook, they looked back at the witch.

"I usually go by Hermione Granger," she said as she shook the witch's hand.

"And I am Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress and professor of transfiguration at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am here to invite Miss P—er… Miss Granger to attend, should she desire. Might I inquire as to how you found out about magic?"

"Harry taught me," she said simply.

"I see. And how did you find out?" she asked Harry. "The headmaster wished for you to grow up in a non-magical environment."

"Well, he sure got it," Harry said bitterly.

"What do you mean?" McGonagall asked.

Harry stopped talking, and Hermione started. "Those horrible Dursleys tried to stamp the magic out of him. They told him his parents died in a car crash!"

_"So he was with them after all. Something's wrong here,"_ she thought, before realizing what Hermione had just said.

"A car crash! Well!" she said. "And how did you find out the truth?"

"My Mum told me," Harry replied.

"Your Mum, Mr. Potter? You do realize she's…well…gone, don't you?" McGonagall had not thought about the Potters for years. They were some of her favorite students, even if James and his friends gave her many gray hairs.

"Of course," Harry said. "But I spent a day with her on Halloween of 1987."

"It's true, ma'am," Hermione said. "I was there."

"So you spoke to her through a medium?" When she saw their blank stares she clarified. "A seer or a device such as a Ouija board?"

"No, she was just there when I went home that day."

"You mean she just…popped into existence? And Lily's sister allowed that to happen in her house?" McGonagall only met Petunia Evans once, when she was on a visit similar to this one, to introduce Lily to the world of magic. Also like that one, she found herself lost as Lily already knew about magic.

"No, I haven't lived with them for years," Harry responded.

"And you live here now?" she asked.

"No, I live on my own," he said, and instantly regretted it.

"On your own! Are you saying that you have no guardian? Where do you live?" Harry was actually somewhat fortunate to see McGonagall's wrath before he started school. He would never take her lightly.

"Er…I live in a tree in the park," Harry said timidly.

"A tree. And why, pray tell, do you live in a tree instead of a house?" she asked sternly.

"Because it's better there," he said, looking at the ground.

"Better than a house?" she asked skeptically. McGonagall truly hoped she would not get the answer she expected; the one she had warned Dumbledore about from the beginning.

"Better than the Dursleys'."

McGonagall sighed. It was as she feared. "So you ran away to live in a tree?"

"Well, it's not just any old tree. It's _my_ tree." Harry was obviously quite proud of his tree.

"Well, I would like to take a look at this tree myself. If I think it is an acceptable home for a child, then I will leave it. If not, do you promise you will allow me to set up proper arrangements?" she asked, knowing that no tree would live up to her standards.

"As long as I don't have to go back with the Dursleys," he stipulated.

"Agreed. I was against your placement there from the beginning. They are truly awful people, no offense meant."

"I take offense to them as a compliment to the person who said it, professor."

"Right. In the meantime, I should explain why I am here. How much do you know?" she asked to everyone in the room.

Hermione spoke for the group. "We know about magic, we know about Voldemort, we know that there is a school for magic, which must be Hogwarts. We know that there is a lot of prejudice against magicians that do not come from a long line of magicians…what else…"

"We know that Voldemort is still alive and he will want revenge against me," Harry interjected. McGonagall flinched at his name and noted the casual way Harry spoke about him. "We know that eventually someone, I guess that's you, will come to take us to a magical shopping district and tell us about school."

McGonagall was surprised that they knew these things, but she was certainly not prepared for what they said next.

"We know that the future generations of magicians will be talentless and leech off of their parents, who leeched off of theirs, and so on, prohibiting lack of progress of magical society. We think that magicians use wands to perform magic, but traditionally used staves long ago, and before that they had no magical focus. Some people can use snakes as their foci and bind them to their will, forcing them into slavery. I don't like to do that, though."

"That's true. We use wands for almost all magic. There are some types of magic that don't require wands due to their nature. The staff was the focus of choice many hundreds of years ago. I don't know about not using any focus, and where gave you that idea about snakes?"

"A snake told me," Harry said. "He usually doesn't lie about things like that."

"A snake told you?" McGonagall asked, shocked. Harry had no relation to the Slytherin line as far as she knew. Maybe distantly through Lily?

"What else, Hermione?" he asked, out of ideas.

"Well, it's very difficult to conjure food. I haven't been able to do it yet. Also, dryads don't like to wear clothes."

"Oh, and most things don't think too highly of our intelligence," Harry added.

McGonagall was in shock. "Anything else?"

"Well, I don't know if this counts, but girls think weird. They say they don't care about how they look, but every third thought is about how they look, and if their hair is out of place."

"Hey!" Hermione took offense at Harry's comment. "At least I don't go around thinking about what I want to eat all day long! Honestly!" The Grangers laughed. They knew that sometimes the two would read each others' minds, but they did not know the circumstances of how that came to be.

"Just wait 'till you're both older. Then you _really_ won't want to be in each other's minds all the time," Emma said, frowning.

McGonagall had no idea what to say, so she acted like she was answering a question in a class. "Conjuring food is impossible; it goes against Gamp's law of elemental transfiguration. I've never met a dryad; not many people have. Very little is known about them. You seem like you're both smart, so I don't know why people would say that. And how would you know about what girls think, Mr. Potter? You shouldn't be reading other people's diaries. And Ms. Potter, of course he thinks about food all the time. He's a ten-year-old boy, and they always go through a growth spurt around that age."

"But I _can_ conjure food," Harry said, and flicked his wrist to conjure an apple.

"You have control over your magic!" she said, shocked again. Albus said that Harry was figuring things out, but she thought he was just doing tricks like Lily had at Harry's age. Then, what he just did caught up with her. "You can conjure food! Did you just summon that from another room?"

"No, I conjured it. That's how I can live by myself," he said, confused. Was he the only one in the world that could do that?

"Mr. Potter, would you please conjure a quiche Lorraine for me?" she asked, astonished at Harry's abilities. She watched him look into Hermione's eyes for a moment, and he conjured a quiche Lorraine.

"I've never had that before, so I might not have gotten the taste quite right," he defended. McGonagall took out her wand, conjured a fork, and sampled a bite. It was a bit salty, but he had just broken a fundamental law of magic and made a food that he had never eaten before look and taste almost exactly like it should.

"Mr. Potter, it tastes fine. I'm just surprised because it is commonly accepted that the conjuration of food is impossible," she said.

"See, Harry. I told you I was trying as hard as I could. You were making me do something impossible." She was acting like she caught him breaking her favorite toy.

"Well, how am I supposed to know that?"

"Just what sort of magic are you two capable of?" McGonagall asked, almost afraid of what they would show her.

They looked at each other and shrugged. "Well, what do you want us to do?"

"Can you turn this into a pin?" she asked as she conjured two matches.

"Of course," they answered in unison, not even looking at the matches.

McGonagall waited a few seconds before clarifying her statement. "Will you show me, then?"

"Er…we already did."

McGonagall looked down and saw two perfectly silver and sharp pins. They were the best she had ever seen out of any first-years. It was even better than James Potter's, and he was the best Transfiguration student she ever had. "So you did. Well, you're obviously both way above expectations. Why don't you just do what you think is most impressive?"

"Well, we've always wanted to try going to the moon, but we think it might collapse the gravitational field of the solar system. We could give it a try, though," Hermione said, and began to clear some space in the room.

"No!" McGonagall shouted. "I was thinking maybe something a little less…potentially destructive. Perhaps something you've tried already?"

"Do you know legilimency?" Harry asked. Their ways worked against each other, but they would need a professional to truly test it out.

"No, that's not something I really have a use for. Why do you ask?"

"We were hoping you could test our shields. We think we've made a system that can't be broken into," Hermione said. "Oh, well. Let's go to the practice grounds and we can show you some of our more flashy spells."

"Practice grounds? You haven't been using magic around muggles, have you?" she asked, hoping that an entire town would not need their memory erased.

"No, the practice grounds are in the Himalayan mountains," Harry said casually. It was at this point that McGonagall began to think she was simply having an unusual dream. Harry walked up to the wall and drew up a portal. Everyone except McGonagall walked into the portal as if it were perfectly normal. She had never even heard of something like this before, much less being made by a ten-year-old and capable of crossing the entire globe. She followed them in a daze.

"Kids, you didn't tell us about this. What exactly do you do here?" Dan asked.

Hermione bit her lower lip. "Well, it's for things of a destructive nature, or if the spell would create an effect that would not fit in the house." The Grangers suddenly looked nervous.

"I want you to have one of us watching when you come here if you're going to be blowing things up," he said.

"Willow usually watches," Harry said. "If something went wrong, she would call you immediately."

"Just let us know, okay? It would just give us some peace of mind," Emma begged. "Plus we get to see some cool stuff, right?"

They smiled. "This is just our standard fireball," Hermione said, as they all turned to face a long-dead tree that looked like it had met the standard fireball many times before. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and made a motion with her hand as if she was bowling. A ball of fire shot out of her hand and hit the tree, starting it on fire.

"Impressive," McGonagall said in a daze. This was beyond her considerable offensive magic capabilities.

Harry and Hermione saw her dulled expression and thought that she was just patronizing them. "And here's something we call a delayed targeted beam," Harry said, as he proceeded to point a single finger at the tree. He held it up and put it down shortly after. They watched as he stared casually at the tree, expecting something. Five seconds after he pointed at the tree, the light around it bent as an unnatural silence went over the mountainous landscape and a ball of light formed, crushed the tree, and shot straight up into the air, followed by an echoing gong-like sound.

After a few seconds of stunned silence from the adults and proud smiles from the children, Emma said, "Yes. I definitely want you to make sure one of us is around."

McGonagall fainted.

x x x

As she opened her eyes, McGonagall looked into the blurry face of Albus Dumbledore. His face cleared as he gave her her glasses.

"Are you okay, Minerva?" he asked.

"Yes, Albus." She sat up and blinked. She was in the hospital wing at Hogwarts. "Oh, I had the strangest dream about Harry Potter. What happened?"

"Well, after he showed you his impressive and, I admit, unnecessarily destructive magic, your mind refused to believe what it was seeing. So, naturally, it created an environment where you felt safe. Although I am surprised that your subconscious chose the Hogwarts hospital wing. Especially since the only time you were in here was after Gladys Burton attacked you for stealing her boyfriend. What year was that, 1938?"

"'39," she replied, showing an unheard of blush.

"However, I feel quite flattered that I am what you think of when you think of safety. Be sure to tell me that when you wake up, as I won't remember."

"Because this isn't real?" she asked, feeling like a child for the first time in decades.

"Precisely!" Dumbledore said, laughing as he stroked his beard. "You're just as insightful as always, Minerva. Although you are also just as vain, even if you rarely show it."

"Vain? Why do you say that?" she asked, slightly hurt.

"Why, because you just complimented yourself using me. I am you, after all."

"You insufferable old man! Even in my mind you speak in riddles!"

"Self-loathing is unhealthy. And who is the one that is truly speaking in riddles, Minerva?" he said, laughing maniacally as he ascended through the ceiling like a ghost.

"I want a new inner voice," she said to herself.

x x x

"Oh, Mum, I think she's waking up," McGonagall heard someone say. She sat up and looked around. No evil headmasters in sight.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You fainted while we were showing you our spells," Harry said as he gave her a glass of water, which she took gratefully.

"Sorry. It's just that you just did spells on the level of the highest wizards, who are hundreds of years old," she explained. "And you did it with hardly any effort and no wand. You gave me quite a shock."

"Sorry, professor," Hermione said. "We've never met any other magic users before. At least, no human ones. We didn't quite know the standard."

"Don't worry about it. It is a good thing. Although some people will not exactly appreciate being outdone."

"Yes, Harry's mum already warned us about them. She warned us about a lot of people, actually."

"Yes. Harry's mum," McGonagall started. "You were going to tell me about that."

"I can take it from here, Hermione," a familiar voice said. McGonagall's head snapped to it. It was Lily Potter, just as she looked in her seventh year.

"Lily?" she asked almost desperately. "Could that really be you?"

"Not quite," Lily's clone said. "I'm Willow. This is my tree."

McGonagall looked around for the first time. When Harry said that living in the tree was better than at the Dursleys', he wasn't exaggerating or being dramatic. This place was a wooden palace. While it wasn't overly big, it was more beautiful than anything a person could create. Flowers grew out of the walls and the furniture was growing out of the tree. The bed she was sitting on was the softest bed she had ever felt. If she could choose to live here over a stuffy house full of judgmental muggles, there would be no doubt in her mind what her choice would be.

"Your tree?" She looked at the woman who had introduced herself as Willow. The only difference between her and Lily was that Lily would never wear scanty clothing made of leaves. As she made this observation, she remembered Hermione's comment about dryads not liking clothes, and she instantly knew how the children knew that fact. "You're a dryad?"

Willow nodded. "Lily used to sit in my tree to get away from her sister, and formed a rare connection with me. Because of that, I am able to use her appearance."

"Forgive me; I don't know much about dryads. How did you come to be in a muggle neighborhood?" McGonagall asked.

"Don't worry. Most people don't know anything about dryads. We tend to stick to ourselves," she said. "In short, it was Harry's magic, helped by Hermione that created me. He treated my tree like a person, and that was what brought me into the world in this form."

"I see. I wish we had more time to talk. I'm sure it would be fascinating."

Willow smiled. "Feel free to come any time you wish."

"Thank you," she said as she turned to the humans. "I have been here much longer than I expected, and I will have to go soon. You two will go on to do incredible things, mark my words." The children blushed and smiled.

"What do you say, you two?" Emma asked them.

"Thank you, professor," they said together.

"You're welcome," she said warmly. She could tell that the next few years would be very, very interesting. Or deadly. "Term starts next year, on September first. This is your acceptance letter, which includes the list of items and books you will need to purchase."

She handed the letter to Hermione, whose face lit up at the mention of books.

"The best place to buy the things on that list is Diagon Alley in London. The entrance to Diagon Alley is through the Leaky Cauldron on Charing Cross Road. It is by design hard to find, so that muggles don't wander in. You'll have to keep a sharp eye out, and it is likely that your parents will not be able to see it, or will try to get you to leave if you are close. Talk to Tom, the bartender, in there to find out how to cross over."

Hermione was writing everything McGonagall said down on a slip of paper.

"Once there, the best place to start is Gringott's bank, so that you may exchange pounds for galleons, sickles, and knuts."

"You can have some of the money my parents left me, Hermione. It'll be easier that way, right?" Harry asked McGonagall.

"Yes. And cheaper," she said. "The goblins charge a significant conversion fee."

"Goblins?" Hermione asked.

"They run the bank. They aren't dangerous unless you try to steal from them. Otherwise, just treat them like normal people," McGonagall said. "Harry, your parents were quite wealthy, as your father was the only living Potter, and they are an old pureblood family, so if you all agree, that would be a good idea. Hermione is registered as a Potter, after all. Everything else at Diagon Alley is fairly easy to find.

"You will take the train from platform 9¾ at King's Cross station on September first. To get to the platform, simply walk into the pillar between platforms nine and ten. Try to avoid being seen by muggles, and everything should be fine. Harry, you will receive your letter the weekend after your birthday. If you have any questions before then, simply write to me and I shall answer if I can." With that, she apparated away back to Hogwarts to deliver her report to Dumbledore.

x x x

Dumbledore sat in his office, thinking about what to do about the Weasley twins. While he enjoyed them as much as he enjoyed the marauders, he had to keep up appearances. Detentions and points taken would not keep them in line; he'd have to send Molly an owl.

"Come in, Minerva," he said, and his door opened.

She looked at him suspiciously. "How did you know that it was me?"

"Come now, Minerva. I can't go revealing all of my tricks," he said. "That would ruin the fun."

Her suspicion deepened. "Albus, why was I in the hospital wing in 1939?"

He looked off in remembrance. "I'm not sure. That is not the responsibility of a transfiguration professor. Why do you ask?"

"Just confirming some disturbing news."

"Are you alright, Minerva?" he asked, concerned.

"I just spent the day with one of next year's muggleborns," McGonagall said.

"And?"  
"Her name was Hermione. Hermione Potter," she said, watching his expression carefully.

"Yes. I noticed that name when the letter was being written on Wednesday. I thought maybe she might be a distant, forgotten squib line of the Potters."

"She not only knew _about _magic, but she could perform amazing spells that she apparently made up from muggle stories."

"Oh, excellent! I always love when muggleborn students accept their abilities, especially when they can control magic without any training. It is always a sign that they will grow up to do great things."

"She was performing elemental evocation."

"Really?" he asked a bit more warily. "And under what circumstances did she show you this?"

"I asked her to show her something that would impress me when she told me she could perform magic. She already transfigured a match to a needle flawlessly. The best I've ever seen," McGonagall complimented. "Then she made some sort of hole in the wall that took us directly to China."

"China?" he asked incredulously.

"China. Or as she called it, the practice grounds. Then she effortlessly conjured a fireball and threw it at a dead tree."

"A fireball! And without a wand? Not even I am capable of that, even with a wand," he exclaimed, getting to his feet in shock.

McGonagall was beginning to enjoy her revenge on the man that inspired her subconscious. "She also introduced me to her brother Harry," she said, and smiled as Dumbledore's brain caught up with the conversation.

"Not Harry Potter! _Our_ Harry Potter?"

"I would not call him _ours_, Albus," she said angrily. "I told you those Dursleys would be no good to him!"

"But he's learned magic! They obviously support him."

"He's living in a tree in the park," she spat at him. "He doesn't go to school because those horrible muggles stopped paying for him to go years ago! That is most certainly not a supportive environment. And because he knows nothing of wizarding culture, he accidentally adopted this Hermione girl! Her last name should be Granger, but because you thought it would be a good idea to raise the boy in a place that hated him instead of a good home, of which many were willing to take him, he accidentally has a new sister! You should be glad they act even closer than real siblings, or we could have a huge problem on our hands!"

Dumbledore sighed. "And what is happening to Harry now? Did you convince him to go home?"

"No, Albus. He is in a place where he is loved, safe, and happy. He even has a friend that will be in the same year as him here." She calmed down. "There are so many people that love him, Albus. Why would you put him in a place where he is treated worse than a house-elf?"

"He needs to be with Petunia Dursley because of the blood wa—"

"The wards are not only intact, but stronger than ever and reinforced by something that not even the Dark Lord would be foolish enough to try and break."

"Minerva, that is simply impossible. Petunia Dursley is Harry's only living relative. Nothing Harry could do, even if he is capable of taking you to China or evocation of the elements, could protect him from Voldemort better than the blood wards. Even a fidelius charm can be bypassed, as we both know," he added sadly.

McGonagall thought about her favorite former students fondly and sadly for a moment before bringing her thoughts back to the present. "He is living in a dryad's tree, Albus. A dryad that thinks of him as a son."

Dumbledore was shocked. "A dryad? Why is there a dryad in Little Whinging?"

"Harry's living in it created it. Apparently Lily sat in the tree when she was young. She looks exactly like her."

Dumbledore paused to think. "Dryads are traditionally off-limits, even for the darkest of wizards. Voldemort, however, is beyond usual evil. However, there is almost no information about them, and Voldemort won't like that. And if she has taken Lily's form, the blood protection cannot possibly be stronger. Very well, Minerva. Perhaps you were right after all." He sighed. "Is there anything else about him?"

"He conjured food."

"Impressive for his age, but not as much as the other things you mentioned," Dumbledore said.

"No. I mean he conjured it out of thin air. I asked him for a food that he had never had before, and he conjured it, right there. He broke Gamp's law."

"That can't be right!"

"Well, it was a bit salty, and not quite up to the house elves' quality, but it was alright."

"I mean it's not possible. Nobody has ever done it before! How can an untrained ten-year-old with no wand do that? Impossible!"

"He started when he was eight," McGonagall said simply. Dumbledore fainted.

x x x

Later that month, the Grangers and Harry went to the Leaky Cauldron. Before they saw it, Harry saw the magic that protected the door with an orange glow that Harry now saw anything magical with.

"There!" He pointed at a shabby-looking door that was so dirty it looked like it was painted black. The Grangers looked.

"Harry, I don't see anything," Dan said.

"You're not supposed to, Dad," Hermione reminded him as she pulled him in the direction of the Leaky Cauldron.

"Oh no!" Emma shouted. "I have an emergency appointment scheduled for today! We normally don't go in on weekends, but I told a man I would make an exception for his tooth extraction! I'm half an hour late and he's probably sitting in the parking lot wondering what's going on. I can't believe I forgot."

"This won't take long, Mum." Hermione pushed her through the door.

"But I need to—"she started. "Wait, I don't have any appointments today."

"It was a spell, Mum." Hermione said as Harry looked around. She was reminded of the cantina in the first Star Wars movie, only set in the eighteenth century. It was just as dingy on the inside as it looked outside, and she didn't think it was the result of any spells. There were people cloaked in dark robes sitting in the corners watching the people come in. An old man at the bar was smoking a clear pipe with twists and turns like a drinking straw she once had. A woman walked past them, yelling at a red lizard in her hand.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Exploding in front of all those people! Never have I been so embarrassed in my life! We'll talk about this later…" The lizard did not seem to be too upset about being punished.

Harry saw the bartender looking at them and washing glasses. "Hello," he greeted. "Are you Tom?"

He continued to wash the glass he was holding. "Aye, that's me. You two must be muggleborns."

"I am, but he's not. His parents were magical," Hermione said.

"Orphan, eh?" Harry nodded. "Sorry to hear that."

"Professor McGonagall told us to ask you how to get to Diagon Alley."

"Of course, miss. Right this way," he said as he put down the glass and came out from behind the bar. He led them to a solid brick wall in the back. Harry noticed that some of the bricks were magical while the others were normal.

"To get into Diagon Alley, you tap your wand on the bricks in the right order, like this," Tom said as he tapped the magical bricks, and they rotated into a doorway.

"Thank you," Hermione said, as they walked through.

As the doorway closed, Harry whispered to Hermione, "Why do you have to tap a pattern into the bricks, like it's a password? If you have magic, shouldn't you be able to tap any of them and get through?"

"That's a good point, but at the moment I don't really care," she said, pointing to the small city that had been revealed to them. There were people of all ages in robes everywhere, walking, talking to their friends, looking eagerly in store windows, and complaining loudly about prices.

"I have to say, you two, when we went in there it was kind of dodgy, but if the style was a bit more…" Emma paused to think of a euphemism. "…more contemporary, it could be a shopping center anywhere." She was glad. While they certainly wouldn't be doing all of their shopping there, it was not the Dungeons and Dragons nightmare she had half expected. At least, there didn't seem to be anybody liable to kill them for looking the wrong way.

"To the bank!" Harry said, and he started walking in a random direction.

Hermione sighed. He was way too used to living in a tree. In there, to find something, you could generally walk in any direction and find it. "Harry, perhaps we should find out where it is first at least?"

He blushed. "I suppose that sounds like a good idea."

x x x

The four of them waited in the line at Gringott's when they finally got there. Harry had gotten lost twice: once while looking in the window at a broom shop, and once for no reason. They got in line at Gringott's and had been there for twenty minutes when they got to the front.

"Next!" a gruff voice called. Harry and Hermione stepped up, the Grangers following a few feet behind them.

"Hello, Mr. Gornuk," Harry said as he looked at the name plate on the counter, and Gornuk raised an eyebrow. "I've been told that my parents left me some money here."

"Sign your name here and it will show any vaults you have access to," the goblin said, pushing a piece of parchment forward.

As Harry signed it, he felt a cutting on the top of his hand.

"You must sign with blood for us to find your vaults," he explained as Harry looked up in concern. "It will heal almost immediately."

As Harry rubbed his hand, the goblin watched Harry's signature move into a list of vaults. "It seems that there are three vaults that you have control over: a trust fund set up by your parents for your education, containing about 10,000 galleons, the Potter family vault, which you will gain access to at age seventeen, containing an unknown amount of cash, and family heirlooms and jewelry, and the Gryffindor vault, of which you are the remaining heir, contents unknown, as the most recent records we have for that vault are from the twelfth century.

"Here is the key for the Gryffindor vault and one for the trust fund. Would Ms. Potter like a key as well?" he asked, looking at Hermione.

"Yes, please," Harry answered, giving the Grangers a look that said they would not be arguing. They had accepted Hermione's new name eventually, but everyone still felt odd calling her by it.

Gornuk gave him an old iron key, and two identical golden ones. "Griphook here will take you to either of those vaults. Do you have any questions?"

"You said that I will gain control of the main vault when I turn seventeen?"

"Yes," Gornuk confirmed.

"Who has control now?"

"Your vault is being held by Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot." Those words meant nothing to anybody except the goblins.

"I see," Harry said in thought. "How can I contact him?"

"I believe the best way would be to send him an owl at Hogwarts," Gornuk replied. He recognized that there was no way this boy knew anything about the magical world, so he added, "Goblins tend to stay separate from wizards."

"Oh. I see," Harry said, not understanding why he would send someone an owl, how to send it to Hogwarts, or why Goblins separated themselves from wizards. "Can I see my vault now?"

Griphook led them to a cliché-looking mining cart and they all got in. Harry was excited to go on a ride, Hermione was interested in how it worked, and the Grangers were hoping they weren't about to die. The cart took off, and Griphook laughed as everyone screamed to fit their level of excitement. They went faster than anything held to its tracks by a few inches of rusty metal should be allowed to. As they shot through the caves, the cart turned faster than Harry could keep track. At one point, they were narrowly missed by a burst of fire coming from a crevice to their side, Griphook didn't seem very surprised. In fact, he looked quite bored.

Eventually they slowed down and came to a stop. Griphook led them out of the cart and Harry handed him the lamp.

"Key, please." Griphook held out his hand and Harry gave him his key. Griphook put the key in the lock and Harry watched as the key, which was perfectly rectangular, let a bit of magic loose that was in the shape of a normal key. He turned the key, and Harry saw something he couldn't believe, even after everything he had been through.

"Well, I guess you're not wearing Dudley's old clothes anymore, then," Hermione said as she too looked on in shock.

"This is all mine?" Harry asked numbly. He looked at the piles of gold in shock, hardly believing it was real.

"Go on, Harry. Fill up a bag." Hermione conjured a sack and gave it to him, and he snapped back to reality.

"You take one too! And one for your parents!" he said as he bounced over to the nearest pile and started tossing coins in.

"Harry, I think you have enough for today," Emma said as she watched him packing a bag worth hundreds of pounds.

"But we're bound to go to a bookstore eventually," Harry reasoned. "I can buy my very own books! And keep them!"

The Grangers stood around awkwardly as Harry filled up another sack.

"Okay. Let's go to the Gryffindor vault," Harry told Griphook as he and Hermione came out of the vault.

They got back into the cart for an even longer, twistier ride. The adult humans were looking sick when the cart again came to a halt. Harry handed Griphook the key, and he put it in same as before, then drew a line with his finger straight down the crack of the door, just like Harry did with his portals. He watched with interest as the Goblin's finger seemed to inject magic into the doorway, which then bled into certain points inside the door. When all of the points were covered in Goblin magic, the door creaked open.

"Do you have some kind of key of your finger?" Hermione asked. She could feel magic, but seeing it was still a Harry-only domain.

"No, it's Goblin magic," he replied, as if sharing a secret. Perhaps he was. "If anyone but a Gringott's Goblin tried that, they'd be sucked in and trapped on the other side. Every ten years or so, we get a couple people stupid enough to try it." He grinned cruelly.

"Oh. Well—how often do you check?" she asked nervously as his grin broadened.

"Oh, every ten years or so."

Harry opened the door when it opened and walked in, and was shocked. "Where is everything?" The vault was the size of a house, but completely empty except for a few dusty pieces of furniture.

"The vaults of the Hogwarts founders are well-known for being almost entirely ransacked except for a few useless items," Griphook replied. "Including the founders' complete sets of Goblin-wrought armor."

"So there's nothing?"

"Each of the founders' vaults has one item they cherished more than anything else. Those are said to only be usable by the one heir of theirs that embodies them in every way possible; their true heir, not just a coincidence of family. Slytherin had his item moved somewhere else shortly before he died. He did not trust the Goblins with whatever it was."

"What happens if there are no more heirs?" Harry asked.

"There are a few vaults that will remain permanently active, such as these. Some of these vaults haven't been opened in generations, but people that think they deserve the sword of Gryffindor, for example, are free to attempt to remove it while under Goblin supervision. Gryffindor's vault is the most popular, since people tend to think they will have to fight a dragon or something to get it and students of Gryffindor house think it's fun. Really, if they can pick it up, it's theirs."

Harry and Hermione read the brochure that professor McGonagall left them, so they knew that Gryffindor was the school house for brave, honorable people. Or, as Emma jokingly referred to them, 'hot-headed idiots that won't admit it when they're wrong.' It was the house that both children wanted to be in, although they didn't really care which house it was as long as it wasn't Slytherin. They seemed to be the rich, pureblood leeches that Willow hated so much.

"So just anyone could waltz in here?" he asked as he did just that. He noticed the sword sitting on a table and approached it.

"Don't worry if you can't pick it up, Harry. It's been here for almost a thousand years," Hermione said as she inspected the sword.

"Gee, thanks for the support. It really moved me." He gripped the handle of the sword and tried to lift it. It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. "Well, your turn I guess. Don't be disappointed if it doesn't like you," he added, knowing how much she hated to lose at anything.

"We'll see," she said as she tried to lift it. "No good."

"Don't worry, it's been here for a thousand years. Let's look over here," he said, feeling something magical.

"Feel that?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah. It looks like a distraction spell. Shouldn't be any problem to get past," he said as he circled it and whispered. "There. Now let's see what we've got."

A chest was sitting there with not a speck of dust or spider webs. A small plate with 'J & L P' stamped on it was at the top of the chest.

"This was my parents' chest!" he said as he opened it. Hermione knew how much he liked finding out about his parents.

There wasn't much in the chest. There were two jewelry boxes and a small notebook or diary. Harry opened the notebook. There was only sentence written in the entire book: 'See me when your mind is troubled.'

"Okay, that's weird."

"See what's in those boxes," Hermione said excitedly. He opened the newer looking one.

"Looks like my parents' wedding rings," he said as he looked at the green jewel that was the same shade as his and his mother's eyes. When he finished looking at them he closed the box and opened the second one.

"More rings?" Hermione asked. "That's odd."

"These look really old." Harry looked at the inside of one of the old rings. "This was Gryffindor's!"

"So you do get something of his, after all."

"Even more important, I got my parents' rings," he said.

Hermione smiled. He really cared more about his parents than about old heirlooms from a famous person.

"Besides, I'd rather have that sword!"

x x x

After Gringott's, they went to everyone's first choice: The bookstore. In this case, that meant going to Flourish & Blott's. Flourish & Blott's was a huge store that had books on every imaginable subject, and then some. Harry and Hermione went crazy, buying at least one book on each branch of magic, and several for some of the more prolifically documented branches. Even though the person at the counter shrank and lightened the books, they were still a burden to carry.

"I think the next stop should be a place where we can buy a trunk," Dan said as he carried the small and light, yet annoying to carry load of books.

"There's a trunk store over there," Hermione pointed.

They walked into the trunk store and a salesman greeted them.

"Hello, how may I help you?" He saw the two children and their obviously muggle parents. "New Hogwarts students, eh?"

Harry and Hermione each opened their mouths to respond, but he interrupted them before they started.

"You'll want new trunks, of course. That's what we sell here, after all."

"We'd just like—"

"We have the wizarding world's largest assortment of trunks, chests, and dimensional hubs here!"

"Dimensional hubs?" Harry asked, not seeing what that had to do with small storage devices.

"Of course, of course! Right this way, young sir!" He started to walk off to a corner of the store.

"Er…actually we'd just like two trunks, please," Hermione interrupted.

"Oh, of course. No reason for schoolchildren to have trans-dimensional gateways in their pockets," he laughed, leading them to the corner opposite the one he was headed in before Hermione told him what they wanted. They stopped in front of a wall with various trunks mounted on it.

"Now, just what sort of trunk would you like?"

"Regular," Harry said simply.

"Regular it is! I must say, that's the popular thing among the young crowd these days," he said to the Grangers. "Now would you like regular with four compartments or regular with six compartments? Both are considered 'wicked' trunks!" He punctuated wicked with little air-quotes.

"I don't quite follow," Harry said.

"Well, the four-compartment has always been a hit with people who need to store a lot of things, and the six-compartment is great for people who need to store a whole lot of things!"

"Isn't there just a…a regular, one-compartment trunk?" Harry asked.

The salesman was shocked. "That's. Incredible…Its brilliance lies in its simplicity. A _one-compartment trunk…_I'll see if the boys in R&D can get on that immediately!"

"You mean you don't have any?" Emma asked incredulously.

"Well, I don't think so, but I'll look in the back." With that, he sprinted into the back room for a second, and came immediately out. "Well, it looks like you folks are in luck! We just happen to have an entire back room _full_ of the things! A _one-compartment_ trunk…" he whispered to himself excitedly.

"You didn't know they were back there?" Harry asked. The salesman shook his head happily. "How long have you been working here?"

"I own the place! Stanley's finest trunks, the only thing our trunks can't do is make a better advertising slogan!"

"Right…"

"Now, what size do you want those single-compartment trunks?" he asked slyly and winked.

"Er…about fourteen by eighteen by fourty-two," Emma said, picturing it in her mind.

"Fourteen feet…Eighteen feet…Fourty-two feet!" he wrote on a pad of paper. "Now that's enough space for a big ol' bunch of stuff!"

"Actually," Emma started, "I think maybe we'll come back later when we're sure…"

"Of course, of course! You can't be uncertain with these fellows, no not one bit! A trunk is a big commitment, after all!"

"Right. Well, see you later," Emma said as she firmly pushed the children out the door. Once they were out of sight of Stanley, who was standing in the window and smiling at them, Emma asked Harry, "Can you just conjure a pair of trunks?"

"I can do that now, and have Willow grow us some sturdier ones." Once they were sure nobody was watching them (out of habit), Harry and Hermione each conjured a trunk and put their books in it.

"Okay, Hermione. What's next?" her father asked.

"Next is…" she looked at the itinerary she wrote up before they left. "We need to buy wands. At least it says we need them. I think they're just to show off. Like jewelry."

"Or one of those little dogs that can fit in a purse," Harry agreed.

"I don't think they would put something like that on the list of basic things you need for school," Emma said as they approached Ollivander's wand shop. "Look, they've been in business for over two thousand years. I don't think they could last that long selling useless things."

"You're right. The Greeks never would have stood for opulence in _their _society," Hermione said sarcastically.

"What I meant was, popular things come and go. This has been here forever."

As they entered the shop, Hermione struggled not to cough with all of the dust that floated through the air. _"It certainly seems like it's never been cleaned in that long,"_ Hermione thought to Harry, who laughed.

"Ah, Mr. Potter," a man said as he drifted out of the shadows. Everyone jumped. Harry and Hermione could not feel his magic at all, but Harry felt something odd about him. Something he had never felt in a human. Ollivander turned to Hermione. "And Miss Potter. Or do you prefer Granger?"

"Granger, please," Hermione said shyly.

"As I thought," he said, and nodded to himself. "And would you two like wands? They would afford you some subtlety."

"We didn't think it's a choice," Hermione said. "It says right here—" She held up her list.

Ollivander waved a hand as if the list of requirements were just a suggestion. "Those are for normal witches and wizards. You two, clearly, are quite the opposite." He looked at them closely in a way that made them glad they knew occlumency. "You both are clearly capable of wandless magic, and I imagine it's refined to an impressive degree. You are also both very powerful, although I have only seen one person as powerful as you before, Mr. Potter. But don't tell anyone I said that; it would be very humiliating for some people. Of course, they could all use a little humility now and then."

"Who was the person who I'm as powerful as?" Harry asked, although he had a guess.

"The one who gave you your scar," Ollivander whispered, focusing his gaze on the mark in question.

Harry swallowed.

"So you're saying we don't need to use wands if we don't want to?" Hermione asked, trying to derail a conversation that would not be good for Harry.

"I'm saying _you_ don't. Most people, almost all in fact, can only perform the simplest of spells without a wand."

"But what makes us different?"

"You both grew up without any wizards around, correct?" They nodded. "Then you have taught yourselves your own, unique kind of magic. Most people are trained to use a wand, and from birth are shown that one is needed to do anything."

"So a wand would be useless to us?" Harry asked.

"Not useless. Just unnecessary. It might make certain spells easier or faster to perform, and it will help avoid pesky questions."

Harry and Hermione glanced at each other. "We both want one then," Harry said, and Ollivander left to get boxes of wands.

"Try these," he said, dumping a pile of boxes on the counter in front of them. He gave Harry one wand and Hermione another.

"What do you want us to do?" she asked as she picked up the wand. As soon as she had it firmly in her hand, Ollivander yanked it out.

"Try this one," he said, and did the same to Harry. They each went through the pile of wands until Hermione found one that Ollivander didn't disapprove of. She held it awkwardly as he shifted his focus entirely to Harry.

"No, that won't do. Too swishy," he mumbled to himself as he shoved boxes around and threw a couple over his shoulder and onto the floor. Eventually he went to get a second set of boxes. As he was shuffling through the next batch, he picked up one and looked at it carefully. "Ah! A bit unusual, but just maybe…"

Harry took the wand from him, and felt warmth travel up his arm. "This is it!" Harry said with confidence.

"As I suspected. Curious, though."

"What?" Harry asked as everyone else focused on their conversation.

"This wand is made of holly with a phoenix feather core," he whispered. Everyone leaned in to hear what he had to say, knowing instinctively that it was important. "The phoenix that gave the feather in this wand gave one other over fifty years ago. The wand that that feather resides in was purchased by the man who grew up to give you that scar."

"This is like Voldemort's old wand?" Harry asked fearfully.

"The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter. You choose how to use it," Ollivander explained. "Sharing a core does not mean you are like him."

After a long silence, Hermione spoke up. "Is this the right wand for me, then?"

"That it is." He said as he put them back in their respective boxes and handed them to their new owners. "That's seven galleons each."

Harry and Hermione each paid the proper amount. While the others started to leave, Harry looked at Ollivander oddly.

"A question, Mr. Potter?" he asked, noticing his look.

"How do you make it seem like you're not there?" he asked. "I can't feel your magic, but I can feel something else that's a bit familiar."

"Ah! You are even more advanced than you appear to be!" he said excitedly. "Powerful, smart, and in touch with nature!"

"I would definitely say the last is true," he smiled.

"Mr. Potter, I am not a hunter," he said seriously. "Yet I use parts from magical creatures in each of my wands. Through the years, I have come to have a certain empathy towards them. I have been able to make deals with them for a feather or hair. I believe that may be the 'familiar thing' you are feeling, as I feel it in you as well."

"Okay, but how come I can't feel your magic?"

"I hide it within myself to calm the animals down. Since you are familiar with muggle technology, I will use that as an example. If something is giving off sparks, you know without a doubt that there is electricity within, correct?" Harry nodded. "That is because the energy has nowhere to go, so it simply goes _out_. Give it a place to go, however, and the sparks will not show. What I do is I let my magic flow in a circle throughout my body. That way, I am not wasting magical energy by letting it go off into the environment. You didn't feel it because it wasn't there. It was inside of me."

"I see."

"It is a very hard skill to master, but if you can do that, you will be practically invisible to magical devices and even the most powerful wizards will have to work hard to hit you with a spell."

"I'll work on it, then," Harry said, and they left.

"But don't you want me to tell you how it works?" He said to an empty shop.

**A/N:** I know Ollivander is a bit OOC here. My reasoning is that he knew when he saw Harry that Harry would see through his mysterious act, so he did something unusual and showed his true personality.


	10. First Year: King's Cross

**Chapter 9: King's Cross**

**First Year**

Over the next months, Harry sequestered himself in the tree to read the many tomes they bought at Diagon Alley. He and Hermione found some of it occasionally hard to understand as it referenced things that seemed to make sense to wizard-raised people, but was way too contextual for the muggle-raised. They did make many improvements in their magic and they were working together with occasional help from Hermione's parents on a sort of glossary of wizard ideas. They also discovered potions, which they never thought of, and couldn't practice because they did not have the proper ingredients for the really interesting ones. They would have to make another trip to Diagon Alley later for those. Harry did not want to conjure the ingredients, because he thought that the magic contained in the ingredients would be fundamentally changed or missing.

One of the more bizarre things he discovered was Harry's fame. He had never thought that surviving a killing curse would bring him fame like what he had. There were books detailing that Halloween night which were mostly speculation and statements made to the press by Albus Dumbledore. What was more shocking was how he was seen by children about his age. There was an entire "Harry Potter and…" series of books that seemed to have absolutely no basis in fact. Harry didn't really care about making money off of them, but they were bluntly made up. There were never any banshees, werewolves, or sinister leprechauns at Privet Drive, that was for sure. A giant, a troll, and a banshee he might believe.

They both read the spell books for their year, and found the spells to be either easy ones they had known for a long time, or spells that were even easier and mostly designed to teach theory, such as turning a match into a needle. They went through the books trying out each spell and getting used to their wands, as a result of a conversation they had almost as soon as they started.

"What do you think Ollivander meant when he said wands would give us subtlety?" Hermione asked.

"Since most people don't know how to use magic without a wand, they think they can't. If someone saw us walking around casting spells by thinking, they might think we're…er…demons or something."

"I don't think that's what they'd assume, Harry."

"Well, you know how wizards' minds work," he reminded her.

"You have a point," she reluctantly admitted. "They'd probably burn us for being not witches."

They both laughed before realizing how possible that might be. From what they could tell, wizards did not have much common sense and tended to make assumptions that they shouldn't.

Eventually, Harry's Hogwarts letter came, delivered by an owl.

"So that's what they meant," he said. "Now we can write that letter to professor Dumbledore."

Harry wrote a letter to him, asking why he was placed in charge of Harry's vault. When he finished writing the letter, he looked up to see that the owl had left, and Hedwig was sitting in its place.

"Er…do you think you can take this to Hogwarts, Hedwig?" he asked tenuously. She nodded as best an owl can, and Harry tied it to her leg. She flew off and Harry hoped that she knew what she was doing.

Several hours later, Hedwig showed up in the tree with a different letter attached. Harry untied the letter from Hedwig's leg and read it.

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_After your parents' unfortunate death, I was given custody of your family vault by the Wizengamot. I am well-known by them for being a trustworthy individual, and they saw fit to bestow upon me the task of making sure your vault is undisturbed by the many people who would wish you harm, both physically and financially. As per the Wizengamot's ruling, I will maintain control of the Potter family vault until a Potter family member claims it. As you are the last Potter, you will regain access and custody of the vault when you turn seventeen. Until then, it shall remain in my control. Should you wish, I will have the Goblins forward the monthly account statements to you to ensure there is no foul play._

_Albus Dumbledore_

_Headmaster, Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

_Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards._

"Hermione, look at this." He handed her the letter and she read it.

"Well, that's odd. Why would they give the financial control of someone to basically a person that has a nice reputation?"

"It's odd, isn't it? Also, look at this." He pointed to the end of the letter. "It says here that he basically _is_ the Wizengamot. And look at the rest of these titles here."

Hermione looked closer. "It almost looks like he's showing off how much power he has. Like he's saying 'go ahead, try and contest this.' What are you going to do?"

"Well, I don't know him personally. He must have a reputation for being trustworthy, otherwise he would have written 'it's the law, and you can't stop me' or something. He knows a lot about Voldemort. He's the source of much of the information about Voldemort, so he's either a follower, which I doubt, or an opponent. Either way, I'll watch those bank statements and judge what I see, not what other people say."

"They say he was the only person Voldemort feared," Hermione added.

"An even better reason to judge what side he was on," Harry said.

x x x

September first came quickly, and there was a rush in the Granger house as Hermione packed her things in her new solid oak one-piece trunk. Harry was sitting there calmly as the only possessions he had were the things on his school list and his extra books. As he was struggling to make his books fit, he realized why multiple compartments on a trunk would be useful. He expanded the inside of the trunk and everything fit fine. As Hermione ran around the house looking for one thing or another, Harry sat calmly on their couch as he said goodbye to Willow, who was standing at the edge of the portal Harry made on the wall, and Nathair, who was coiled around Willow's arm, not saying much.

"I'm sure I'll be fine, Willow," Harry said as he rolled his eyes. "I know most people, especially at my age, wouldn't appreciate everything you've done for me, but I do."

As Harry gave her a hug, she started to cry. "No, Harry. You're the one who deserves the praise. I wouldn't exist in this form if it weren't for you. You're an incredible being, Harry. You gave me faith in humanity for the first time in a long while."

"I'm not that great," he replied modestly. "Anyway, I'll be sure to visit often, even if they say it's not allowed."

Willow laughed. "Which reminds me…" She went back into the tree pulled something from the ceiling, and pushed it into his hand. "Take this to Hogwarts with you. Find the closest forest and plant it there. Do that, and I'll be able to travel between trees when the new one eventually grows. It will take a couple years, but the magic of the area will make it faster than a normal tree."

Harry looked in his hand. It was an ordinary-looking acorn. "An acorn?"

"Protect it, Harry. If it is destroyed…" She trailed off, looking especially grim.

"It won't be," he assured as he conjured a padded box with a lock for it.

"Harry, we're ready," Emma said.

"Okay, I'll be there in a second." Harry hugged Willow, brushed his hand on Nathair's head, and joined the Grangers in their car.

As they drove quickly to the station, Dan, who was driving, began to panic. "We're not going to make it in time!"

"Just go as fast as you can, dear," Emma said. As Dan sped up, she revised her statement. "As fast as you can go _legally._"

They made it to the station with only a couple minutes to go.

"That was close," Emma said. "I don't know what we would have done if we missed it."

"Oh, we probably would have just opened a portal there," Hermione said simply.

The Grangers looked at her through the mirror. "And why did you tell us this now, after we've driven all this way? You couldn't have just done it from home and saved us some stress?"

"Well, I thought you wanted to do it as some kind of symbolic thing," she explained. "I mean, why take a seven-hour train ride in the first place when we could be there instantly?"

"You don't miss a thing do you?" Emma asked. "I never would have even thought of that."

They rushed up to the platform where they all said their final goodbyes and walked into the not-so-solid wall, disappearing from the Grangers' view.

They looked at the bright red train in awe as steam billowed out from the first car and onto the platform. It looked like it was straight out of a magazine. The train whistled, and they hurried onto the train, looking for an empty compartment. While they were good with socializing with each other and all three guardians, they were still pretty bad at talking to people their own age. They sat down as the train blew its whistle again, signaling that it was about to leave.

The compartment door slid open a crack and someone asked, "All the other compartments are full. Can I join you?" They nodded and he came in.

He was a lanky, red-haired boy that looked to be another first year. He was wearing clothes that were a bit shabby and worn, but Harry was certainly not a person to care about that.

"Hi, I'm Ron. Ron Weasley," he said as he sat down.

"Harry Potter," he introduced.

"No way! You mean—the—Harry Potter?" he asked, looking at Harry's scar quickly.

Harry blushed. "Yeah, that's me. But almost all of what those books say is completely made up."

Ron got slightly crestfallen. "You mean you've never escaped from vampires on the back of a hippogriff?"

"I didn't even know what a hippogriff was until a few months ago," he said. "And I've ever met a vampire as far as I know."

Ron shivered. "I can't stand the thought of vampires. There not as bad as spiders, though."

"What's so bad about vampires?" Harry asked innocently. "If you have them sign a magical contract, you can let them have your blood and they won't turn you. Or just give it to them in a bag. They're only scary because nobody's willing to give them food, so they have to take it by force. If witches could work out a plan, we'd be able to exist alongside them peacefully."

Ron was starting to think that Harry was…unusual. "Why witches?" he asked.

"Well, if I say wizards to mean 'magical humans in general,' Hermione gets upset with me." He pointed to Hermione.

"Hi, I'm Hermione…er…" she looked to Harry for guidance. He shrugged. "Well, just Hermione for now. I suppose we'll find out what my last name is later."

Ron was ready to leave. Harry Potter was obviously not the hero all those books made him out to be. Although he would definitely be a Gryffindor after what he said about vampires. And then there was the other girl, who wasn't quite sure what her last name was. As he was planning to invent a reason that he had to leave, the compartment door opened again.

"Hello," a voice said, and Harry turned around to meet the most magically powerful being he had ever met. "Have any of you seen a toad?" a round-faced boy asked timidly. He looked as if he was about to cry.

"No, Neville," Ron said, rolling his eyes.

Harry rose to his feet unconsciously. "We'll help you find him!"

Hermione was nervous. She, too, could feel his power, and it was almost exactly equal to Harry's. Harry was more powerful, but just barely. When Harry stood up, she thought that Harry was going to fight him for some reason. Instead, he seemed to be in awe. She stood up to help him find his toad.

"Do you know any good spells?" Harry asked as they left to go look for the boy's toad.

"Me?" Neville asked. "Er…no. Most people thought I was a squib until a year or two ago."

"Really? Why?" Hermione asked. "I'm Hermione by the way." Neville shook her hand.

"Neville Longbottom," he introduced, and shook Harry's outstretched hand. "I've never done any accidental magic before, and I'm not good at many things."

"So? That just means you have good control. I'm Harry Potter."

"_The_ Harry Potter?" Neville asked.

"Yeah, but most of what you've heard about me is completely made up."

"So you never killed a mummy with a crossbow?" he asked, disappointed.

"Er…I don't think that would stop a mummy," Harry replied. "I think I'd use a spell."

"Oh. That _does_ make sense. Well, they were pretty unusual things for a seven-year-old to be able to do, I suppose."

"So where do you think your toad went?" Hermione asked, bringing them back on task.

"Oh, right." Neville and Harry both blushed. "Well, I had him when I got on the train, and then later I didn't."

"So he could be anywhere?" she asked.

"He's in there," Harry said confidently, pointing to the luggage car.

"How do you know that?" Neville asked.

"He's scared, and there aren't any people in there."

"Harry's really good with animals," Hermione said.

Neville opened the door to the luggage car and looked around. "Trevor!" he shouted as he bent down to pick up his toad.

"Wow, Harry! That was amazing!" Neville said.

"If you say so. Let's go find a compartment."

They went to the nearest empty compartment and sat down, only for the door to open immediately after it closed.

"I hear Harry Potter's around here somewhere?" a blonde boy in expensive robes asked. Two dumb-looking kids stood behind him. Harry could practically smell the arrogance coming off of the blonde. Harry was reminded strongly of Dudley. He looked at Harry's forehead. "I suppose that's you?"

"Yes," he said simply. Harry didn't really want anything to do with the brat, but he wasn't about to be rude. "But most of the things you've heard about me is made up."

"You mean you've never raided any muggle villages on the back of a Hungarian Horntail?"

"Er…No." Harry looked at him oddly. "What kind of things have you been reading?"

"Just the proper books father gets me. Anyway, I know you're new to the wizarding world, and I think you should have a proper introduction so you know what types to avoid." He looked at Neville with contempt.

"And you're the person to do that for me?" Harry asked doubtfully.

"Of course. Draco Malfoy," he introduced. Harry reluctantly shook his hand. "I can help you out with who's who around here. For example, I wouldn't be caught dead in the same compartment as Longbottom here."

"Just because he's powerful is no reason to avoid him. It might be scary, but I doubt he'll do anything to you as long as you're nice," Hermione said.

"What are you on about?" Malfoy asked. "Everyone knows he's a squib. Who are you anyway? I've never seen you before."

"Well, I've never seen you before. I prefer not to associate with _your _type," she replied. From what Lily and Willow told them, she assumed he was one of the pureblood elitist types with no real skill whatsoever.

"Just what does that mean?" Malfoy asked angrily. The buffoons behind him cracked their knuckles.

"Nothing. Nothing at all." She casually waved off his anger before trying to find another way to offend him. "Where _did _you get those robes? They're hideous!"

"They're from Madam Malkin's select line! These cost thirty galleons, I'll have you know!"

"You say that as if it's expensive. My good robes, which I would not be caught wearing on a train full of commoners, are made with thread spun from dryad vine fibers. There's more magic in my clothes than in your wand. Now get out of this compartment before they start to wilt from depression at being stuck in the same room as you." Malfoy growled in anger and left the doorway, letting the door slam shut. Hermione felt Harry's respect at the way she handled it and smiled.

"That was amazing, but I think you may have overdone it a bit with that dryad stuff," Neville said nervously.

"Well, it's true. He came in here to show off and put other people down, so I don't see why I can't."

"You mean you really have dryad…whatever robes? That must be really expensive," Neville said, impressed. "I didn't even think dryads dealt with humans."

"Well, I got them from a friend. They aren't very expensive at all, though. I just wanted him to think they were," Hermione admitted, not wanting to tell him that she just saved the bits of ivy from when Willow's 'clothes' got too long and she trimmed herself. "And while there is incredible magic in it, it's really just to keep it from getting dried out or eaten by bugs."

"Oh." Neville wasn't sure what to say. They were kind of weird but they were also very nice to him. "Why do you say I'm powerful? Everyone knows I'm not."

"Well, certainly not with that attitude," Harry said. "But I could feel it when you walked in. You're the most powerful human I've ever met."

Neville looked doubtful, so Hermione stepped in. "He's right. You're the most powerful person I've met too, except for Harry, who's just a little more powerful."

"Really? I'm more powerful than _that?" _Harry asked, not believing it at all.

"Only a little bit," Hermione said.

"How do you two know that?" Neville asked as he came out of his shock.

"We've learned to feel magic over the years. Harry can actually see it."

"It's like a glow," Harry said as he nodded.

"But I thought you were sent to live with muggles?" Neville said.

"Yes, but I escaped."

"Escaped?" he asked.

"Harry's relatives are like the muggle version of that Malfoy kid," Hermione said. "They don't like anything to do with magic, especially Harry and his parents."

"So why were you put with them if they hated you?"

"I don't know. That's one of the things I hope to find out here."

Neville nodded. "So how did you learn magic if you grew up with muggles?"

The three of them talked about magic and what they knew about it for the rest of the train ride, although Harry and Hermione decided to keep the true extent of their abilities a secret until they knew Neville better.

When the train slowed to a stop, the three of them got out of the train and onto another platform, where they joined the rest of the crowd until they heard someone calling them.

"Firs' years, over this way!" a giant of a man called. His head stood three feet above the sea of children and he probably could have filled an entire train compartment on his own. As the first years made their way over to him, Harry got the feeling they had met before, like a dream he couldn't quite remember the details of. When Harry was close enough, he asked him about it.

"Excuse me, sir?" The man looked down.

"Issat 'Arry Potter?" he asked excitedly. "I 'aven't seen you since yeh were a little baby!"

"I thought you looked familiar," Harry said. "Were you a friend of my parents?"

"Well, I can' believe yeh recognized me! Yeah, I was a friend of theirs. Poor James an' Lily were some o' tha best people I ever met! Shame what, happened to them, it is. I was the one who found 'em, you know." The man obviously liked them a lot, because he looked like he was about to cry. "Rubeus Hagrid's tha name."

Harry shook his massive hand and immediately regretted it. Harry doubted that Hagrid knew he was crushing his hand, but he was. "Nice to meet you."

"Well, yeh best be getting into tha boats now, but why not come down to me hut sometime fer tea?" Hagrid asked as he led the first-years to the boats.

"Okay, we'll be there,' Harry said as the three first-years got into a boat.

Hagrid gave the command and the boats took off. By now, they could see the castle across the lake, and it was even better then they had expected. The warm lights from the castle lit up every tower, and the combination of the night sky in the background and the reflection on the lake was astounding. Harry didn't see any of this, because, to him, the castle was glowing with magic so brightly that it hurt to look in its direction. As they got approached the castle, Harry and Hermione felt an amount of magic greater than they thought possible. In their minds, it was like diving into an ocean after spending their entire lives content in a desert. They dropped to their knees in awe as they stared at the castle that they were rapidly approaching.

"Watch yer heads now," Hagrid called, but he was by far the only one that had to worry about the cove the boats were approaching.

When the boats entered the castle and stopped at a stone dock, the students nervously got out of the boats. Neville seemed to be very afraid of the water, and Harry and Hermione needed to help him out.

Hagrid approached Professor McGonagall, who was waiting at the dock. "The firs' years, professor."

"Thank you, Hagrid." He nodded, waved at Harry, and left through a door that Harry was sure was not there a second ago. Professor McGonagall appraised the first-years. "Welcome to Hogwarts. I am Professor McGonagall, deputy headmistress and professor of transfiguration. Before the feast begins tonight, you will first be sorted into your house. While you are attending Hogwarts, your house will be like your home, and the other members your family. The four houses are Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. Each is known for several distinct personality traits, and each has produced powerful and well-known wizards and witches.

"By doing well in classes and showing exemplary behavior, you will be awarded points for your house. By showing poor behavior your house will lose points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points shall be awarded the house cup. Any questions? Mr. Potter?"

"Who decides what behavior is considered exemplary and how are points distributed?"

"Your professors will decide both. Use common sense to determine what sorts of actions are frowned upon." She looked at him a moment more and added, "If you have any questions after your first day of classes, you may come to my office. If there are no other questions, we may begin the sorting." She looked around for other questions and led them through a door, and into the Great Hall.

The Great Hall truly was great. Hermione made Harry read her favorite magical book, _Hogwarts, a History_, so Harry knew what to expect. Seeing the actual thing, however, was completely different. By now, his magical sight had adjusted to the sudden burst of magic, so he could finally see the splendor that was Hogwarts. The ceiling showed the cloudless sky and the only actual part of the building that showed was a little bit of reflection from the hundreds of candles floating in midair above the tables.

As Harry looked around in wonder, he noticed the faculty table at the front of the hall. He noticed three people that piqued his interest. First, the man he correctly assumed to be the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore made eye contact with Harry for a moment, then paled and looked away, shaking slightly.

Second, a black-haired man with a crooked nose who was looking at him with an expression of hate. Harry could feel the pain, resentment, hate, and determination in his heart from all the way across the hall where he was standing. He knew without a doubt that this was the man his mother left the message for. Even though he was looking at Harry like he wished for nothing more than for him to roll over and die in the most painful way possible, he decided that he would try to ignore all the dark, oily negative feelings from him and try to bring out the small amount of purity and goodness that barely clung to life inside of him. The man was his mum's friend, after all. Like Dumbledore, he intensified his gaze, paled, and turned away quickly.

Finally, a tall man wearing a turban that, unlike the others, was not even looking in Harry's direction. Like with the black-haired man, he reeked of horrible emotions and malice, but with none of the hidden goodness that the other had. As he finally made eye contact with Harry, he paled, sharpened his gaze, and paled to a point that Harry did not think possible. He looked as though he didn't want to look at anything above his shoes, but held his stare with Harry until he looked away sharply, shaking slightly.

Harry snapped back to reality as he overheard people talking about the sorting process. It was one of the only things that was not written in _Hogwarts, a History._ The book said that it was a tradition that nobody was to tell what the sorting process was, except for when it actually happened. The book then had five pages of common stories that older students told their siblings to try to confuse or scare them, ranging from writing a poem, trying to make the headmaster laugh, and wearing a hat to fighting a dragon with only a fork and a bit of gum, jumping off of the tallest tower and counting the bounces, and how much poison one could drink before collapsing. It then had a page that theorized that the house system itself was only a myth and that it did not in fact exist at all. Harry and Hermione did not believe it when they read it, and McGonagall proved them right.

McGonagall brought in a stool and an old hat. _"So it's putting on a hat after all, is it?"_ Harry thought to Hermione when she opened her end of the link. _"I think we can do that."_

Hermione laughed. _"I don't think that's how simple it is, Harry."_

As Professor McGonagall stood back from the stool she placed the hat on, its brim opened like a mouth and it began to sing.

"_Oh, you may not think I'm pretty, _

_But don't judge on what you see, _

_I'll eat myself if you can find _

_A smarter hat than me. _

_You can keep your bowlers black, _

_Your top hats sleek and tall, _

_For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat _

_And I can cap them all. _

_There's nothing hidden in your head _

_The Sorting Hat can't see, _

_So try me on and I will tell you _

_Where you ought to be. _

_You might belong in Gryffindor, _

_Where dwell the brave at heart, _

_Their daring, nerve, and chivalry _

_Set Gryffindors apart; _

_You might belong in Hufflepuff, _

_Where they are just and loyal, _

_Those patient Hufflepuffs are true _

_And unafraid of toil; _

_Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, _

_if you've a ready mind, _

_Where those of wit and learning, _

_Will always find their kind; _

_Or perhaps in Slytherin _

_You'll make your real friends, _

_Those cunning folk use any means _

_To achieve their ends. _

_So put me on! Don't be afraid! _

_And don't get in a flap! _

_You're in safe hands (though I have none) _

_For I'm a Thinking Cap!" _

With that, it shut again and Professor McGonagall called the unlucky first student forward. "Abbot, Hannah." Hannah slowly approached the stool and sat down. After a few seconds, the hat called out "Hufflepuff!" Each first-year was called up and they were sorted to their houses. Eventually, McGonagall called "Longbottom, Neville."

Neville left his spot from next to Harry and Hermione and sat down as McGonagall placed the hat on his head. "So here's the first. Interesting."

"First? But we're about halfway through."

"Oh, with them, yes," the hat thought, mentally pointing to the students sitting at the house tables. "But you are the first of the important ones. I wish you were all in the same year, though. That would make things a lot simpler."

"What are you on about? I didn't break you, did I?" Neville asked, worried. What if he was so stupid and powerless that he dumbed down the hat?

"I've been worn by every 10-year-old in Britain for the past millennium. You don't have to worry about breaking me, especially since you're very smart, and one of the most powerful wizards to ever wear me. I'd say you're about as powerful as Helga."

"Hufflepuff?" Neville asked, astonished.

"No, Smith," the hat said sarcastically. "Of course Hufflepuff."

"Are you…er…allowed to be sarcastic?"

"I share the personality of Godric Gryffindor. How could I not be sarcastic?"

Apparently the hat wanted an answer, because it was silent. "Er…you have to, I suppose?" he asked uncertainly.

"That's right! Now, I've decided to give the six a choice. Prophecies are messy things, but free will is always neat and clean. Easy to figure out who's to blame for something."

"Prophecies?"

"Don't worry about it; you're not the only one who doesn't know. Now here's what's going to happen. You have two choices: Hufflepuff, where you'll make great friends, marry one of them, have kids, a decent job, and live a modest life. Your immense magical power will be mostly wasted due to a lack of training. Or Gryffindor, where your life will be full of suffering and you will be risking your life from the beginning. But you will be incredibly happy if you survive. You'll be able to do everything you did in Hufflepuff, but you will be a national hero, a celebrity, and you'll be with the greatest friends someone can ask for. You will have powers that the world as you know it has never seen, except with your friend Mr. Potter."

"Harry? I don't think we're exactly friends. I mean, we only shared a compartment."

"The three of you are friends, although I don't think you realize it yet. Any of you. But I haven't seen their minds like this. Rather convenient."

"Well, I suppose."

"Suppose all you want; it won't change the truth. You are friends," the hat said firmly. "Now, average but safe or exceptional but risky? This is a hard choice to make at your age, but I'm afraid circumstances demand that it be made now."

Neville thought hard. He'd practically submitted to a life of mediocrity. He was glad to even be at Hogwarts. But this was beyond anything he'd imagined. "Does this have something to do with Harry?" The hat was silent. Then Neville did the bravest thing he'd ever done: Chosen to be a Gryffindor.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted. Neville got up and sat at the Gryffindor table, pondering on what he'd just done.

x x x

After "Patil, Parvati" who went to Gryffindor, Harry was called up.

"Potter, Harry!" McGonagall called. Throughout the hall, whispered conversations began as people looked to see the face of the legend and what house he would end up in. As Harry sat down and put the hat on, the entire hall, students and staff alike went dead silent.

Harry sat for a few seconds after before he started to wonder if he was supposed to be doing something. It didn't look like anyone else was doing anything. In fact, some of them barely had the hat on before they were sorted.

Suddenly, the hat started screaming. "Oh my God! Get me off of here! Help! Please! It's horrible! Demons and hellspawn!" McGonagall rushed up, snatched the hat off, and put it on her own head to talk. Harry realized that the hat was probably seeing his occlumency shield.

"Professor, I think I know what the problem is and have solved it," he said to McGonagall.

"Are you sure?" she asked warily. "What happened?"  
"He saw my occlumency shields. They're quite unusual."

She looked at him for a moment before handing him the hat. "I hope you're right about this, Potter," she whispered as he took down his shields and put the hat on.

"I must say, Mr. Potter," a voice echoed from within his mind, "that you have the most horrifying and effective occlumency shield I have ever seen."

"Sorry. I completely forgot I had them on," he said. "I actually feel kind of naked right now. I'm pretty sure at least three people tried to use legilimency on me just now, now that I think about it."

"Well, feeling naked for a minute is better than having my mind scarred forever. I'm over a thousand years old, as you very well know, and I have to be judging people with an open mind."

Harry felt himself blush. "Well, better get on with it, then. People are staring at us."

"Right. Well, let's take a look under the hood," the hat said. Harry wondered how the hat, which had been in the headmaster's office for a thousand years, knew a recent muggle expression. "I remember everything that a student knows. You aren't the first muggle-raised student, you know.

"Hmm…you're obviously smart. You would do well in Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff too. And you want to be a powerful wizard, which you already are, so you would do well in Slytherin. And you're certainly a Gryffindor with things like that always haunting your mind constantly. I leave the choice to you, but know that the house that _you_ choose, Harry Potter, will change your life, and many others' lives, forever. You are at a crossroads. Choose wisely."

"Gryffindor, then," Harry thought.

The hat sighed. "Very well." It sounded mildly annoyed. "GRYFFINDOR!"

_"Although its better than Slytherin or Ravenclaw," _the hat thought to himself.

The Gryffindor table cheered as Harry sat down at it. The cheering died down quickly, however, as something only two students and two professors expected happened.

"Potter, Hermione," McGonagall called.

Hermione walked over to the stool as the hall again went into silent conversations, this time in confusion. She took her shields down and put the hat on.

"Ah! We have a smart one here!" the hat said. "Loyal to your friends, too."

"You mean friend. I only have Harry," she replied somewhat bitterly.

"Definitely book-smart, though. Have you forgotten your new friend already? That's not very nice."

"You mean Neville?" The hat gave a curious sort of thought-nod. "But I've only just met him a few hours ago."

"And? You thought of Harry as a brother just a day after meeting him. And he was a very tactless person. The point is, you'd rather die than betray him, right?"

"Yes! Of course!"

"And you want to go to Gryffindor with your brother?"

"Again, of course!"

The hat sighed. "Then I suggest you find out what it means to die rather than betray him before your life is actually at risk. You're both still children and don't understand what you're agreeing to. If you go with Harry, you will know the true meaning of pain. That much is certain. It's up to you to keep them in check."

"I just said I'd do anything, right?" she said.

"So be it. The way it's been going so far, I think it'll be the way Dumbledore wants."

"What do you mean?"

"All three of you so far have played right into his hands. Just be sure that you are the ones doing the playing, not him."

"What does Dumbledore have to do with anything? And who's the third?"

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat declared in response. Hermione reluctantly sat next to Harry, hoping that someday she'd be able to talk to the hat again.

While most of the first years were sorted and sitting at their tables, the last few stood around nervously. "Weasley, Ronald!"

Ron sat on the stool as he put the hat on.

"And here's the last one for this year…"

"No, there's still two more," Ron said.

"Never mind. Let's see what's in your mind." The hat looked, and sighed internally. There just had to be one. Oh, well. It was unrealistic to think they'd all be perfect. But he was still young and shapeable at least. "And you want to be in Gryffindor, I assume?"

"Of course!" Ron sounded insulted. "Where else would I go?"

"You are more of a Slytherin than a Gryffindor right now. You have ambition, but you don't like to put forth effort. Slytherin will help you there; most of its other students are like you. You're not quite as bigoted, though."

"No! I want to be a Gryffindor!"

"Then you'll have to change. Gryffindor won't stand for your current attitude. You think you deserve to get what you want because you're a pureblood. You don't think muggles or muggleborns are bad, but you certainly don't think they're equal."

"That's not true!"

"It's subconscious. Anyway, you can go to Slytherin and enjoy a life of luxury or you can go to Gryffindor and learn to work hard. If you go there, your life will be difficult to say the least."

"Gryffindor," Ron said firmly.

"Very well. Just remember, it's what you asked for. GRYFFINDOR!"

x x x

Harry was happy when the food finally appeared on the plates in the middle of the house table. He hadn't eaten in hours.

"Didn't McGonagall say it was impossible to conjure food?" he asked Hermione.

"It's not conjured," a red-haired boy interjected.

"It's brought by the house-elves," a second boy exactly like the first continued.

"I'm Fred Weasley," the first one said.

"Are you sure? I thought I was Fred," the second said.

"Well, maybe you are," the first said in thought.

"Well, that's what I thought, Fred," the second said.

"And this is my brother George," they said in unison.

"I think you're Fred," Harry said, pointing at the first. They both stared at him.

"How'd you do that?" they asked.

Harry shrugged. "It was a fifty-fifty guess."

"Well, young man, see that it doesn't happen again!" Fred said, before turning to Hermione. "So are you related to Harry here, then?"

"Not by blood, but he's like a brother to me."

"But your names…"

"I accidentally adopted her one day," Harry said casually.

"Accidentally…"

"…adopted?"

"Well, I wasn't trying to adopt her, but here we are," Harry said, and he felt Hermione knocking on his mental door.

_"Let's mess with them a little, Harry"_ Hermione thought to him.

"Just one day…" Harry started.

"All of a sudden…" Hermione continued.

"We were just…"

"Like real…"

"Brother and sister!" they finished together.

"Wow…" The twins said in awe. "It _is _creepy, after all."

"Now I know why people don't like it when we do that," George said.

x x x

Once the feast was finished, Dumbledore stood up and got everyone's attention.

"Before we may enjoy several exciting hours of sleep, there are a few things I need to say," he began. "First, our caretaker, Mr. Filch, has asked me to remind you that magic is not to be used in halls between classes."

_"No magic between classes? And we're not supposed to do it in the summer. It's almost as if they don't want us doing magic at all,"_ Harry thought to Hermione, who nodded thoughtfully.

"Second, the Forbidden Forest is in fact forbidden, and it is forbidden for a reason."

_"What are we going to do about that acorn, then?" _Hermione thought.

_ "We'll just have to break the rule," _Harry decided, not caring about rules.

"Last, the right side of the third-floor corridor is also forbidden this year, unless you wish to die a painful death."

_"That's practically an invitation for someone to go looking there," _Hermione said._ "The forest I can understand, but there shouldn't be anything inside the school that would give 'a painful death.' How bizarre."_

"Now off to bed with you all. You have an important day tomorrow," Dumbledore said as he stood. "First-years, your prefects will show you where your house is and give you the password to enter."

As the hall turned into a sea of students pushing their way out, they heard someone calling "Gryffindor first-years, follow me!" It was a red-haired boy, who was obviously another Weasley. He led them through the castle, and up to a portrait.

"Caput Draconis," the prefect-Weasley said, and the portrait swung open, showing the Gryffindor common room within. "The girl's dorms are up those stairs, and the boy's up the other ones. Your luggage should already be in there."

Harry and Hermione hugged and separated for the night. Both of them fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows.


	11. Classes

**Chapter 10: Classes**

Harry got up early to wander around a bit before breakfast and classes. It was going to be hard for him to get used to sleeping in an actual bed and being told where to go and when. He felt like he had gained and lost freedom at the same time.

As he wandered through the empty castle, he came across a room that was filled with such powerful magic that he couldn't look at it. Slightly nervous at what he would find, he began to open the door only to find that he couldn't. He looked down and clearly saw a glowing doorknob, but he couldn't feel it. He stopped using his magic-vision and looked again. It was just a plain wall, but there was supposed to be a door of some kind there. As he was about to experiment with it using magic, he felt Hermione trying to talk to him.

_"What, Hermione? I'm in the middle of something interesting right now."_

_"Oh, nothing. I just thought you might want to come down to breakfast and get your class schedule before someone asks where you are."_

_"I'm going to have to get used to responsibility again, aren't I?" _Harry moaned mentally

_ "Think of it as a learning experience."_

_ "That was horrible, Hermione," _Harry thought as he sent her a feeling of exasperation._ "I'm on my way now. Get my schedule for me if I'm not there when whoever it is gets to you."_

_ "It's Professor McGonagall, Harry."_

_ "I'll be there as fast as I can,"_ he thought, bringing his pace up to a near run.

When he got to the Great Hall, he was out of breath, sweating, and glaring at Hermione. Everyone else in the hall was eating casually and McGonagall was nowhere to be seen. Hermione was looking at the expression on his face and trying not to laugh.

"Yes, well, we'll see how funny it is when you're sleeping and open to any manner of annoyance," he said as he sat down and took a muffin. "Hi, Neville."

Neville looked up as Harry greeted him. "Hi Harry, Hi Hermione," he said, thinking about the sorting last night, and how he could bring it up without being obvious. "So, we're all in Gryffindor, huh? What are the odds of that?"

"Well, I was definitely going wherever Harry was," Hermione said faithfully.

"What do you mean?" Neville asked.

"Well, we didn't think what house we were in would matter, as long as we're in the same one," Harry said. "So whatever house I got into was the one she would try to get into as well."

"So the hat just let you choose like that?" Neville asked, thinking about both the choice he was given as well as his idea that it was somehow connected to Harry.

"Well, it told me that I was equally suited for all houses," Harry explained, "but it didn't seem to like the fact that I chose Gryffindor. What do you think the deal with that is? I don't think the hat is supposed to favor one house over the other…"

"It _is _odd. It was kind of disappointed in me for going to Gryffindor also. It kind of warned me."

"Me too," Neville said, causing the Potters to look at him intently. "It said my life would be full of suffering."

"It said I would know the true meaning of pain," Hermione added. "It also said I was the third one."

"One what?" Harry asked, beginning to worry.

"I don't know."

"It called me the first," Neville said, once again drawing their undivided attention. "What do the three of us have in common?"

They all went into thought. "We shared a train compartment?" Neville said tentatively.

"Most people shared a compartment with someone else."

"Neville, you weren't raised by muggles, were you?" Hermione asked.

"No. My family goes back hundreds of years."

They went back into thought.

"There was something else, too." Hermione leaned in and looked around to make sure they weren't being listened to. "It said that Dumbledore wanted us all in Gryffindor. It said we were playing right into his hands."

The three first-years looked at each other nervously.

"Mr. Longbottom, Mr. Potter, and Miss Potter." Hermione jumped. Professor McGonagall appeared next to them without being noticed. All three of them sprung into a posture of innocence that every teacher knows means someone's Up To No Good. McGonagall looked at them suspiciously, but could not see anything amiss. "Your class schedules."

They each took their slip of parchment from her and pretended they didn't think they were about to be punished.

"Looks like we've got Transfiguration, History of Magic and Charms today," Harry said. "Good. Professor McGonagall is good at magic. She's the one who gave Hermione her letter and explained everything," he explained to Neville as they began to head towards the Transfiguration room.

"I thought you already knew about magic?"

"Knew about magic, sure. But we didn't know about Hogwarts or Diagon Alley or any of that. We just knew that magic was real and that we could do it," Harry explained.

"But then how'd you get a wand?"

"We didn't."

"You didn't have a wand?"

"Nope."

"Wow. That's amazing! I've never heard of anybody doing that before, even hundred-year-old warlocks."

"Ollivander said it was a different type of magic. One that we'd basically invented ourselves."

"So you have wands now?"

"Yes. We love to learn as much as we can," Hermione said. "Harry actually quit Muggle School so he could spend all say working on magic."

"So Hogwarts is like heaven for you, huh?"

"No," Harry joked. "Just the library is."

x x x

"Transfiguration is one of the most difficult, most dangerous, and most interesting branches of magic that is not used primarily for dueling," McGonagall said from the front of her classroom. "I will not tolerate any behavior that can potentially harm yourselves or another student. If I see this, you will be removed from my class."

Harry and Hermione knew McGonagall more as a person than a teacher. They knew she was strict and didn't take any nonsense, but this was beyond what they expected. She had started the class by transforming into a cat and back, which she told them was called the animagus transformation, and was apparently tremendously difficult. In fact, she was one of only a few who were capable of it. The class was amazed by it, and then she started talking about rules.

Eventually, McGonagall gave the class their first assignment: The same one she had given to Harry and Hermione, turning a match into a needle. At first, Harry didn't understand why you would want to turn a match into a needle when it would be just as easy to conjure it. Then he looked around. Most people made absolutely no change in their matches. Not only that, but they did not change their approach to the spell in any way. They just kept waving their wands in the same pattern and saying the incantation with the exact same pronunciation. Harry watched the magic struggle to flow through their hands and into their wands. It was not at all like what he was used to seeing with Hermione and himself. With them, it flowed like water through their bodies. Here, it was like honey.

"Potters, may I see you for a moment?" McGonagall asked. They followed her to the front of the classroom. "I believe that you both have far overreached the scope of this class. In fact, I believe there is nothing I could possibly teach you. Harry, you can conjure food! That's literally unheard of! It's been universally considered impossible since the fifteenth century! And Hermione, except for your inability to conjure food, which I assure you is _not _something to feel bad about, you have met or surpassed him.

"Now, just as I don't want students to waste my time, I will try not to waste yours by making you perform these rudimentary exercises each day. Therefore, I think it will be best for you to decide on an independent research project that you will spend the rest of the term on. Have you looked into your texts much?"

"Only until the beginning of the fourth-year texts," Hermione replied, "although we only read the actual theory, not tips for practicing and the like."

"Fourth year! In just eleven months?" McGonagall didn't think it possible, but these two shocked her even more than they already had. Also, most students skipped the theory and went straight to the casting tips. "And you believe you understood it all?"

They nodded. "There's a few things we haven't tried yet, but we think we have the theory down."

"Amazing. Why don't you take the rest of the class today to decide on a subject for your independent research? Don't forget I'm here to teach you, so don't be afraid to ask for help. You may use my personal library of transfiguration-related texts while in class, and I will write you a pass to the restricted section of the library should you truly need it."

Harry and Hermione looked at each other and smiled.

"I stress the _truly_ and _need_," McGonagall added when she saw their smiles. Harry had James' smile exactly. She knew what that smile meant. "For now, just make a list of subjects that interest you and we can go over them when I am done helping the rest of the class."

She left them standing next to a large bookcase stuffed with transfiguration books as she walked around, correcting incantations and wand movements. As Harry watched her leave, he happened to see Neville trying to transfigure his match with no luck. He looked depressed at his apparent failure, but Harry looked closer. Unlike the other students, who really had to concentrate to get their magic flowing, Neville was whipping his wand in the direction of the match in frustration. What was _really _unusual was that there was a massive amount of power flowing quickly through his arm, but it stopped at the wand as if the wand were a plug in a faucet. Harry made a note to himself to ask Neville about it later.

When McGonagall came back to them twenty minutes later, they were already starting their independent research.

"The animagus transformation?" she read from the top of Hermione's parchment. "If it were anyone else, I'd say to wait five years, but you two just might do it. Very well. It's a long process that is mostly self-discovery and meditation. I don't want you to try any actual transforming until I am certain that you can do it, and definitely not by yourselves. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Professor," they chorused.

x x x

In History of Magic, which was taught by a ghost, Harry was thinking about his conversation with Willow about education. This Professor Binns was obviously the type of teacher that she was referring to, who only focused on throwing information out as if he was checking off items on a list. After twenty minutes of a soporific lecture, Harry decided that history was a subject he could teach himself. He opened his textbook and began to read. After a few minutes of reading, Harry noticed that Professor Binns was just reading out of the textbook verbatim. At least, he was saying what was in the book. He had apparently taught this class so much that he had memorized the entire thing word for word. Harry knocked on Hermione's mind.

_"Make it quick, Harry. I'm taking notes," _she said.

_ "Don't bother. We already bought a set."_

_ "What are you on about?"_

_"Go to page fifteen in the book,"_ Harry thought, and watched as she flipped through the book.

_ "He's reading it out loud exactly."_

_ "I'm just going to read the book by myself and spend the rest of the class doing my own research."_

_ "You're not supposed to do that, Harry."_

_ "Yeah, well…he's supposed to actually teach us."_

Hermione watched as he opened to the first page and started reading. After a few minutes she reluctantly joined him. _"This follows the standard rule,"_ she said.

_"Of course,"_ Harry said, smiling. When Harry was still going to school with Hermione, he would always try to get her to do something that was on their actual level. The standard rule was that Harry would take the blame for both of them. Of course, nobody had ever said anything to them.

x x x

Neville sat in the Great Hall in thought. It was going exactly as he thought it would: He would try his best to do a spell, but he simply couldn't do it. The other students would laugh at him, the teachers would shake their heads, and he would give up, ready to cry.

"Hey, Neville." Neville looked up to see Harry and Hermione sitting across from him.

"Hello Harry, Hermione," he replied, not looking up.

"I was wondering why you were stopping your magic from flowing earlier," Harry asked.

"What are you on about?"

"Well, I was watching you in class earlier, and you stopped your magic from flowing right when it got to your wand."

Neville looked like he was about to cry. "That's not funny, Harry."

Harry just looked confused. "Er…I know it's not. I'm just curious why you did that."

"It's because I'm basically a squib! You didn't figure that out yet? I knew this would happen," he said as he looked down at his half-eaten meal.

Harry laughed. "No, really. What's the story?"

"You know, I thought you were a nice person. But all you want to do is make fun of me."

"That's not true, Neville," Hermione said as she caught on to the fact that Neville was serious. "We're not making fun of you. It's true. We can both sense magic, so we know you're actually extremely powerful."

"Sense magic?"

"Yes. I can see it like a sort of light and Hermione can feel it."

Neville looked at them suspiciously. "Well if that's all true, then how come I can't do anything right?"

Harry looked at him for a moment in thought. "Do you expect to?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you cast a spell, do you think you will do it right, or do you think you'll botch it up?"

"Botch it up, of course," Neville said confidently.

Harry put his head in his hands with a sigh as Hermione looked at Neville with understanding. "Well, there you go. Of course you're doing it wrong if you think you will."

Neville watched as the two Potters looked at each other and nodded slightly. "Neville, meet us in the common room after classes are over for the day."

"Why? What are we going to do?" he asked nervously when he saw the identical grins on their faces.

"You, Neville," Harry started, "are going to learn True magic."

x x x

After lunch the Gryffindors had Charms class with the Ravenclaws. Charms was taught by a very short man, Professor Flitwick. As he lectured the class, he had to stand on his desk on a stack of thick books just to be seen. He seemed like a nice person, and everyone took to him quickly. The class itself seemed to be a class on miscellaneous and household spells that would not fit into any other class. Professor Flitwick did not teach any spells on the first day, but spent the entire class going over theory. This was extremely basic theory that they both surpassed almost a year earlier, so Harry daydreamed about the nature of magic itself and how it fit in with the rest of the world while Hermione answered every question that nobody else seemed to know. While she did not come across as an attention-seeking know-it-all like before she met Harry, she still showed her brilliance frequently.

Harry watched closely as Neville focused intently on the lecture, hoping to gain as much knowledge as possible so that he might someday be able to cast a spell. Harry smiled to himself. Teaching Neville would be fun.

x x x

Meanwhile, several hundred miles away from Hogwarts, a young red-headed girl sat with another girl who was now her only friend.

"But what if he doesn't want to be my friend anymore when he comes back?" she asked the blonde. "What if he only wants to have Hogwarts friends?"

The blonde watched as the redhead's head sunk down again. "Ginevra, I don't think Ronald would do that. If anything, he'll probably want to spend more time with you when he gets back since he will miss you."

"Ron's not the sort of person who misses people, Luna. The others are, and even they never want their friends to see their dumb little sister," Ginny said as she punctuated her last few words with a light kick to the dirt underneath the large rock they were sitting on.

"Even Bill?" Luna asked as she covered her eyes with leaves and inspected the sun.

Ginny gave a sad smile. "Well, he's different, but he's halfway across the world right now."

"I'm sure Ronald hasn't forgotten you," Luna said confidently. "In any case, we'll both be going to Hogwarts next year, so it doesn't really matter if he only wants to have Hogwarts friends."

"I suppose you're right," Ginny said with a sigh. "He wrote to Mum, though. Probably just so she wouldn't tell Percy to look after him. He said he sat with Harry Potter on the train for a while."

Luna looked up at Ginny. Normally, whenever her hero was mentioned, Ginny would start to get excited and blush. She wore an almost disappointed expression for some reason. Normally Luna didn't care much for the stories of Harry Potter. Even at her age she could tell that nothing like those tales could happen in the muggle neighborhood Harry had supposedly been sent to. Not without the ministry punishing him at least. From the stories her father had told her, Harry Potter had just as many friends as enemies in the ministry, and his enemies wouldn't hesitate to have him punished for the slightest illegal action on his part.

"And?" Luna encouraged. She might not care about Harry Potter stories, but she knew Ginny did and wondered what could possibly cause this sort of attitude.

"He said those stories about him are all fake," Ginny said with a frown. Luna smiled to herself.

"No real person could do all of the things in those stories, Ginevra."

"I know, but…it's just a bit disappointing, isn't it?"

"I think it's a good thing," Luna said with a smile.

"What's so good about that?"

"Well, now you know that he's a real person, not a character from a story. Someone you can probably sit down and talk to." Luna looked at Ginny as she got back her "Harry" smile.

"I can't wait 'til next year," Ginny said.

x x x

Back in Hogwarts, the second youngest Weasley was deep in thought, something that had not happened outside of a chess game for a while. What was even more unusual was that he was thinking about himself. Bad thoughts about himself.

_'I don't really think that pure bloods are better, do I? I mean, it's not like a Death Eater or something,'_ he thought to himself.

_**'Of course you don't want to go killing them all,'**_ another voice in his head said, and Ron nodded. _**'You just think that you deserve more than they do, even if you haven't earned it.'**_

_'That's not true,'_ he yelled to the voice._ 'I'm a Weasley. Weasleys are great with Muggles.'_

_**'Yet you speak of them as if you were training an animal.'**_

___'That's not what I meant.'_

_**'Are you sure?'**_ the voice asked. The first voice did not respond.

x x x

On the other side of the common room, Neville was waiting for Harry and Hermione, excited about maybe learning how to cast an actual spell, and nervous about the fact that he probably couldn't. After all, if the professors couldn't teach him, what good will two first years who only knew about the _existence_ of the wizarding world for a few months do?

"Neville!" a voice whispered from behind him.

"Hermione?" he whispered back instinctually. "I didn't see you come in."

"You weren't supposed to," Harry whispered from Neville's other side. "We're invisible."

"Er…I can see you, you know."

"Well, obviously. But nobody else can."

Neville looked at them suspiciously. "You can cast a disillusionment spell?"

"No, that just makes you blend really well into the background," Harry said proudly. "This is actual invisibility."

"That's impossible, Harry. You need something like an invisibility cloak to use that. There's no spell for it."

"Come with us and we'll prove it," Harry said, and motioned Neville to follow them out of the common room and into the hall.

"What's the point of turning invisible to come in if you're just going to walk right out?" Neville asked as he followed Harry and Hermione.

"What do you mean? We're still invisible."

Neville looked around the common room. Sure enough, no one noticed them leaving the room. "Well, why can't they see me? And how come I can see you if you're invisible?"

"We made you invisible also, and we can choose who can see us," Hermione explained. "It gets kind of annoying when invisible people keep bumping into each other."

They led Neville into an unused classroom. Harry pulled a couple chairs off of the stack against the wall and cleaned them off with a wave of his hand while Hermione did something to the door.

"What's she doing?" Neville asked Harry as they sat down.

"She's sealing the room so nobody can come in or hear what's happening in here."

"What? Why do you need to do that?" Neville asked, starting to feel a bit nervous.

"Because this is secret stuff we're going to tell you. Bad stuff might happen if anyone finds out about this," Harry said seriously.

"It's not illegal, is it?" Neville asked nervously.

"Not as far as we know," Hermione said as she joined them again. "But a lot of people would not like the fact that we can do some of the things we can do."

"Step one," Harry started, "take out your wand."

Neville brought his wand out and Hermione immediately yanked it out of his hand and threw it to Harry, who was standing on the far side of the room. "Hey!" he shouted, thinking he was about to be killed.

"Relax, Neville. You won't be needing it ever again," Hermione said. That did not reassure him.

"We're going to teach you how to do wandless magic," Harry said.

"Wandless! But I can't do it even _with_ the wand!"

"Right. And we're going to fix that," Hermione said. "For some reason, the wand is the problem, not you. Did Ollivander say anything unusual about it?"  
"Er—it was my father's."

"So it's not even a matched wand?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Well, that explains it, then," Hermione declared.

"There's something wrong with my wand?"

"Yes. It's not yours," Harry said, sighing. "Okay, hold out your hand and make some light, like this." Harry generated a ball of light.

"What's the incantation?" Neville asked.

"No incantation, no movements. Just _want_ it to happen."

Neville held up his hand and stared intently at it. Harry watched as a small amount of magic slowly crept up his arm. Neville closed his eyes tightly.

"Okay, now let it out," Harry said when it reached his hand and stopped moving.

Neville opened his eyes and wished that it would work, only half-expecting that it would. "I did it!" he said as his magical light lit up his gleeful face.

"See? We told you you could do it," Harry said. "Now let's work on levitation."

x x x

The rest of the week went by quickly. Defense Against the Dark Arts was something Harry especially looked forward to, so that he might be able to someday live up to his reputation. Professor Quirrel, however, seemed like the last thing on Earth he wanted to do was teach it. He stuttered uncontrollably and would jump in fright at odd noises. Harry noticed a powerful bit of magic in the turban he constantly wore. It was filled with more dark magic than Knockturn Alley, to the point that Harry got sick just looking at it. Harry wondered why a professor would not only have something like that, but treat it like a security blanket, and decided that it was something he used to ward off evil. Harry knew that he would never want to start a fight with someone that always had _that _wrapped around his head.

Harry and Hermione were mildly interested in herbology, but didn't really see a use in it other than for making potions ingredients. Neville, however, took to it quickly and it soon became obvious that it was his favorite class. The Potters continued to train him in their special breed of magic after classes each day. While he showed massive improvement in his abilities, confidence, and determination, he still had a harder time than both of them and couldn't use his wand very well.

"C'mon, Neville. You know you can do it," Hermione said as they tried to teach him how to cast a fireball.

"I know, I know." Neville sighed. "Maybe I'm just too used to normal magic, where you can only do things like that if you are extremely powerful and have a hundred years of experience."

"You _are _extremely powerful," Harry said for the hundredth time. He sighed. "Maybe we're just trying to do too much too fast. It's only been two days, after all. Why don't we hold off on the explosions for now and have you try making your own spell. Just relax and let some ideas come to you. Go sit outside underneath a tree or something. We'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye, Neville," Hermione said as she and Harry left for the library, which they had not been to yet due to their new student.

x x x

On Friday, the Gryffindors and Slytherins waited in the Potions dungeon for their professor to arrive. Draco Malfoy was glaring at Harry and Hermione, who were partnered with Ron Weasley and Neville respectively. Neville was afraid that he would screw up, and Potions was not a subject that their unusual magic could help with. They both believed that Neville was above average level in any magic-focused classes after his few days learning from them. Potions, however, was a different story.

Harry and Hermione both believed their skills were equivalent to about a third-year's in Potions, since they had no way of complementing their skills with anything other than their intelligence. Neville still believed that he was an idiot, so he lost the boosted confidence he had gained through the Potters' help. They, of course, knew that the true problem was not a lack of intelligence, but a lack of education. So Hermione partnered with Neville as Ron Weasley nervously asked Harry if he could work with him. Not having any reason to refuse, Harry agreed, and the four of them shared a work table. Malfoy was stuck glaring at them from across the room, too afraid of Harry's reputation and Hermione's apparent higher social rank than the Malfoys to do anything.

Suddenly, the door opened with a forceful bang, and the dark man that Harry assumed was his mother's friend glided into the room.

"Put your wands away; they will be useless in this classroom," he said sharply. "Potions is a subject that can be dangerous in untrained hands and sublime in masterful hands. Because of this, should any of you display unimpressive behavior, I will have you out of this class before you can even attempt to apologize for being an idiot."

The class gave him their undivided attention, the Slytherins knowing that they would be favored by their head of house and the Gryffindors dreading the fact that Snape wouldn't hesitate to throw them out. As Snape looked across the room slowly, taking in the fear in the Gryffindors' eyes with glee, he came to rest on Harry.

"Harry Potter," he drawled. "Surely one so accomplished as yourself knows all about the art of potion making?"

"Well, Professor," Harry started, "Most of the stories you've heard about me are completely made up, sir."

"So you did not, in fact, defeat the most powerful dark wizard in recent history when you were a mere infant?"

"I wouldn't say he's the most powerful wizard." Harry stood up straighter as he began, for the first time, to speak out loud something he had considered for a while now. "I just think Vol—"

"_Do not_," Snape said forcefully, "speak the Dark Lord's name," he finished with a whisper that the entire class heard easily in the deathly silent room.

"I think that _that man _was simply willing to do things that even the worst of people would never even consider," Harry finished.

"Is that so?" Snape asked sarcastically. "Well, if you're so smart, what would I get powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Harry looked up in thought. "That's the Draught of Living Death, I believe."

Snape did not look satisfied. "Where would I go to find a bezoar?"

"Probably your cabinet, but most people would have to look in a goat's stomach," Harry joked. A few of the Gryffindors giggled.

Snape sneered at him. "One point from Gryffindor, Potter. What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane? Try to make an actual answer this time instead of a call for attention."

"They're the same plant, sir," Harry said seriously.

"So you actually know something, then? I thought all these tales of you were made up?"

"Well, they are, sir, I just—"

"What will happen if I add crushed beetle eyes to a vial of hippogriff bile?"

"You'd have to go to the hospital wing because of some pretty bad burns, sir," Harry replied calmly and politely. "Is there a reason you're only asking me these questions, sir?"

"Yes, Potter. It's because you are the most _promising_ student here, or so I've heard. What is the equation for producing an antidote to a poison of a volume of seventy-five milliliters and a mass of sixty-two grams?"

"I don't know, sir. I've only studied up to the fourth year texts. I believe that's a bit more advanced."

"Don't be ridiculous, Potter. Another point from Gryffindor. Now everybody get out your notes. You're going to be making a potion to cure boils. Potter, since you're so _advanced, _why don't you make a shrinking solution?" Snape ordered cheerfully.

"Yes, sir."

While Harry (with assistance from an unlucky Ron) carefully made their shrinking solution (from the third year curriculum), the rest of the class worked on their first-year potions. Neville seemed to understand the theory, but whenever Snape would come within five feet of him, he'd start to panic and chop the ingredients badly, give Hermione the wrong things when she asked for them, and start to add them when he shouldn't. Fortunately, Hermione anticipated this and kept an eye on him whenever Snape was near. Unfortunately, Snape also seemed to expect it and Neville lost a total of six points by the end of the class. As the four of them packed up their things, Ron spoke up.

"Er…Hermione, you're Muggle-born, right?" he asked.

"Yes. Why do you ask?" she replied carefully. While she had not had any problems due to her kindness and good knowledge of magic, she knew that blood discrimination was a huge problem for the wizarding world.

"Well…I was just wondering…" he trailed off to choose his words. "Is it really that much different than this world?"

That was just about the last question Hermione expected. "Well…not really now that I think about it. I'm sure purebloods would have as hard of a time getting used to science and technology as my parents and I got used to magic. Both worlds have problems that can't be solved, people with problems, poor people, rich people, disagreements that resort to violence, people that hate the government…now that I think about it, the only difference is that Muggle society has advanced in technology while the magical world seems to be set in about the middle ages. In terms of social progress, they're about the same."

"Social progress?" Ron asked, and Neville looked just as lost.

"Y'know, like greed, crime, corruption, discrimination…it's all the same."

"I think what she's saying is that the only difference between Muggles and Wizards is—ow!" Hermione stomped on Harry's foot lightly when he said 'Wizards.' He rolled his eyes and continued. "…Wizards _and Witches_ is that Muggles use technology instead of magic."

Ron nodded a bit and looked off in thought while the other three headed off to the abandoned classroom they had been using to teach Neville. Hermione knocked on Harry's mental door.

_"What's up?" _he asked.

_ "I thought you were going to tell Snape that message from your mother."_

_ "Why should I?" _Harrythought angrily._ "I don't believe for a second that that man was ever friends with her. It's not possible."_

_ "She told you that he wouldn't like you, Harry."_

_ "Fine. That's true. But I don't like him, either. And that's why I'm not going to tell him."_

_ "It was kind of her dying wish, you know. In a way."_

_ "Well, as soon as he deserves it, I'll tell him," _Harry declared as he closed the link.

x x x

"And how was everyone's first week back?" Dumbledore asked his staff, who were gathered in his office.

"It was simply lovely." Everyone turned to look to the shadowy corner where a voice dripping with sarcasm was coming from. "I had five melted cauldrons in the first half hour of the first day. I felt like I was dancing in a flower-filled meadow."

McGonagall bit her lip to hold in the laughter that swelled up at the mental image of Snape prancing around in a sunny field, his pitch black robes rippling in the breeze, and a warm smile on his face.

Dumbledore ignored his sarcasm entirely. "I know what you mean, Severus. The eager young faces with willingness to learn always makes me feel the same way. So, what does everyone think about their new students?"

"They seem to be a bit above average, mostly. There are a few who need merely to put forth a little more effort to be successful," McGonagall said.

"I agree. I was especially impressed by the Potters," Flitwick said. Snape snorted and Dumbledore perked up.

"Yes, tell me about them."

"Well, they're both good kids and came already knowing a lot, both theoretical and practical. I don't think they will learn much that is entirely new to them for another year or two," Flitwick said. "I'm worried that they'll be pretty bored. I'm considering making them assistants during parts of the class where they can help the other first years."

"This is ridiculous. I refuse to listen to any more of these boy-who-lived fantasies. He's disrespectful and an average student at best," Snape interrupted.

"I wouldn't have either disrespectful _or _average students learning the animagus transformation in the first week of their first year," McGonagall interrupted. "They're both geniuses, and very responsible on top of that."

"Are you sure that's wise, Minerva?" Dumbledore asked. "You of all people know how easy it is to abuse that power, and at such a young age…"

McGonagall held in her blush as she remembered what she did the first time she was finally able to transform fully. Not that anyone would ever find out about _that_, however. "Yes, Albus. I know, but these are two of the most responsible students I've ever had, and definitely _the_ most responsible first-years. Besides, they won't be done with their training in this until around fourth year."

The room was silent as Dumbledore thought. "Does anyone else have any comments about them?"

"I didn't really get to know them as much as you all seem to have, but they seemed like nice people to me," Sprout said. Sinistra merely nodded.

"T—They are g-good students. V-very k-nowledgeab-ble," Quirrel stuttered out.

"I thought about as much. They know a lot about subjects that are purely magical in nature, such as transfiguration, charms, and defense, but are just a little above average with things like potions, herbology, and astronomy," McGonagall said. "Although I suspect they did better than Severus is letting on."

"Well, keep an eye on them for anything unusual," Dumbledore suggested as Snape glared at her.

"Albus, everything about them is unusual," McGonagall said.

"Well, anything that is…disturbing," Dumbledore said as he glanced quickly at Snape, who nodded slightly.

"Such as?" McGonagall asked.

Dumbledore paused. "Such as signs that he may be being possessed by Voldemort."

Quirrel gave a quick scream and Snape narrowed his eyes. McGonagall, however, reacted differently. "I highly doubt that, Albus. Just because he's smarter than everyone expected…Do you have any reasoning besides that?"

"Yes," Dumbledore stated grimly, and left it at that.

**A/N: **Sorry it's taken so long for this chapter…It's been hard for me to write parts from the first year because it's something I want to get over with, and I'm trying to have some fun doing it instead of compressing it into 1 or 2 chapters like other authors do. Also, college and work will be taking up my time from now on, so new chapters will be more like once per month instead of per week. Hopefully. I'm in my last year as an English major so I will be busy doing a lot of non-HP writing. As a somewhat-related note, I'm taking a class on Rowling here (Eastern Illinois University) so that should be interesting. I might upload any papers I do for that class somewhere if they're any good …

Also, in order to give everyone a sort of preview, I'm considering posting Luna's sorting (which I wrote at the same time I did the rest) since I had a lot of fun with it. If you want to see that, or if you don't want any potential spoilers (which are some minor but somewhat expected), then leave a review saying what you want. I'll see which is the most popular by tomorrow night (8/22) and post it then if everyone wants that.


	12. New Friends

**Chapter 11: New Friends**

"Flying lessons? I don't really need them, and I'm sure that most of the purebloods don't either. That should be an optional class," Harry said to Hermione.

"Yes, well, most people don't take to it as instinctively as you did."

"Well, we should still be able to test out of it or something," Harry whined.

It was the second day of their flying lessons, which had been postponed because Harry decided that his school broom was too slow and stripped it of its speed limitations. Harry flew straight up, fast enough that Madam Hooch thought he was going out of control. Harry was fine, and flew back down when Madam Hooch told him to, but she still was freaking out about it. The class was postponed until they could be sure that what they thought was an accident would never happen again. It took several weeks to re-cast all of the charms on the brooms, which had no real problems to begin with, and they could start flying lessons again. Harry was not exactly fond of the idea.

"Of all the classes to hate, I thought flying would have been the last one," Hermione said.

"Flying is something I want to do when I am bored and want to relax, not when I need to study," Harry whined.

"I doubt that you'll need much studying, Harry." Hermione paused. "Well, maybe in restraint."

"The last thing I need while flying is restraint."

As they got to the class gathered outside and stood next to a pair of brooms, Harry decided that perhaps this time he wouldn't remove essential spells from the broom.

"Careful, Potter. You don't want to break _another _broom, do you? Those things aren't cheap, even if they _are _pathetic." After humbling himself to every person he talked to, nobody was really intimidated by Harry anymore unless he wanted them to be, which was rare. Combined with the fact that Malfoy found out that Hermione was Muggle-born and not part of some hidden elite class that he had never heard of, he stopped being afraid of them.

"Malfoy," Hermione said, and stared at him for a while.

Eventually he was forced to reply. "What, Potter?"

"You're an idiot." The Gryffindors laughed, and Malfoy stormed off to his broom with Crabbe and Goyle in tow.

"Alright, everyone. Next to your brooms," Madam Hooch said as she began the class. "And no funny business this time."

Harry blushed as the Gryffindors that knew him well snickered. He decided that this time he wouldn't tamper with any of the spells, even if it _did _make the broom feel slow.

Harry listened carefully to her instructions, flew a couple feet into the air, and hovered as he waited impatiently for Madam Hooch to give them a more interesting order. Unfortunately for Harry, he would not get to do any feats of impressive flying in the second class, either.

"Mr. Longbottom, not so fast!" Neville, although his confidence had increased immensely over the past month, was still apparently afraid of flying. In his nervousness, he began to lose control of the broom. "Longbottom, come down this instant!"

Madam Hooch's command just made him more nervous, and he spiraled up faster.

"Calm down, Neville. You just need to relax and slow down a bit, and it will come under your control," Harry shouted to him to no avail. The broom suddenly flew backwards out from beneath his legs, and everyone watched in shock as he began to fall straight down over a hundred feet. Madam Hooch pulled out her wand and was about to cast a spell, but Harry beat her to it.

"_Wingardium Leviosa!_" Harry shouted, and Neville's descent slowed, but not enough. He hit the ground and everyone winced as they heard an audible snap.

"Here, Longbottom. Let me see," Madam Hooch said as she felt his arm. "Looks like a break. You're pretty lucky, though. It could have been a lot worse, especially without Mr. Potter's help."

She turned to Harry. "Potter, you haven't been taught that spell yet, have you?"

Harry shook his head. "No, I learned it myself. I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"Of course not, boy," she said kindly. "In fact, fifteen points to Gryffindor."

Harry smiled in thanks, but was also relieved that he wasn't going to be punished for doing something he shouldn't know.

Madam Hooch picked Neville up and turned to the class. "I'm going to take him to the hospital wing. If anyone so much as touches a broom, they'll be out of Hogwarts before they can say Quidditch." She left the class and ran towards the castle.

"I hope he'll be alright," Hermione said.

"Don't worry, they're just going to cast a spell on him to fix the bone and he'll be as good as new," Harry replied. "I'm actually surprised that Madam Hooch didn't know the spell herself, seeing as she probably has to deal with a lot of injuries."

"Harry, look!" Hermione pointed to the Slytherins.

A circle had formed around Malfoy, who was holding a small object. The Slytherins laughed and turned to look at Harry. A feeling of dread swelled up in Harry, and he looked closer at what Malfoy was holding.

"Hermione, that's—"

"I know, Harry." They both ran over to Malfoy, whose grin grew when he saw them.

"Hey, Potter. Look what I found." He was tossing to himself a dark green wooden box about the size of a jewelry box.

"Give that to me, Malfoy," Harry demanded, filled with anger. "I mean it."

"What? This?" He caught the box and opened it. "Is this an acorn? Potter carries around a box with an acorn in it!"

As all the Slytherins laughed and some of the Gryffindors looked oddly at Harry, Hermione felt Harry's magic build up to a level she had never felt before. Everyone else just stood there as if nothing unusual was happening.

_"How could they not feel it?"_ She wondered to herself. She wanted to scream and step in front of Harry to stop him from doing anything, but she felt like if she moved a muscle she would be crushed by his overwhelming power. After struggling, she barely managed to call his name. "Harry…"

"You know how important that is," he said to her, and turned back to Malfoy. "Give it back, Malfoy, or I will kill you."

Malfoy obviously didn't feel Harry's magic turning angry, or see how serious Harry was. Some of the others began to back off, solely from the look on his face. Malfoy, of course, was not the most insightful of people. "You'll _kill_ me, Potter? Please! That's the best you could come up with?"

Harry stabbed his wand at a head-sized rock that happened to be sitting on the ground a few feet away. There were no sounds. There were no lights. There was only a surge of power felt by Hermione, Neville, who was all the way in the hospital wing (although he had no idea what it was or what it meant), and two professors, who stopped what they were doing and looked up worriedly, followed by the rock turning into a mound of sand.

"Give. It. Back."

That seemed to show Malfoy just how serious Harry was, although he still responded with idiocy. "Help! He's going to kill me!"

Malfoy jumped on his broom and began to fly away.

"What does he think running will do?" Ron Weasley asked. "After what happened a few weeks ago, I don't think any sane person believes that Harry is worse off in the air." Sure enough, even the Slytherins shook their heads at his stupidity. The only one that actually feared for Draco's life was Hermione.

As Harry caught up with him (it didn't take very long), he gave Malfoy another warning. "Give it to me, Malfoy. Now."

Realizing he was outclassed in every possible way, and perhaps realizing just how serious Harry was, Malfoy pulled the box out of his robes with shaky hands. "F-fine! Take it!"

As he practically threw it at Harry, the lid of the box popped open and the acorn inside, Willow's acorn, flew out over Harry's head and began a rapid descent onto the castle courtyard. One that would surely destroy it.

Harry swung the broom to face the opposite direction and chased after the acorn. He dived almost straight down to follow the sickle-sized object. Ignoring the wind rushing past his ears, he focused entirely on saving it from sure destruction. The screams from below and the sight of the class cheering for him to catch it all faded out of his reality. He leaned forward on his broom as it began to shake from the incredible speed, and closed his hands around the acorn, just barely securing it. As he snapped back to reality, the whole world rushed back to him: The cheering Gryffindors, the Slytherins, who were happy for some reason, the sound of someone calling his name in anger, and, most importantly, the ground. Before he could be broken beyond repair himself, he pulled up on the struggling broom and, with a skid and a slam of impact, he leveled out a few inches from the ground, trailing sparks from the magical end of the broomstick the entire way. As he slowed to a stop, he realized that the person yelling angrily was none other than Madam Hooch.

"Potter! Put that down and come with me, right now!"

Harry could tell she was not happy in the least that he saved the acorn. "I was just—"

"I don't care, Potter. We're going to see your head of house." As she led him away, she remembered the rest of the class. "Class is over. Everyone go back to your common rooms. Other Potter, collect the brooms and lock them and the shed over there."

Hermione knew that Madam Hooch simply didn't want her to follow them, but she decided to believe that it was because she was the most trusted student in the class. "Come on, everyone. Give me your brooms," she said with a sigh.

"Here you go, Potter. I wonder who's going to be your boyfriend when he's expelled," sneered a familiar Slytherin. Hermione took his broom and stomped on his foot as hard as she could.

"You know, Malfoy, for expensive shoes, those are really soft and thin. Almost like expensive socks with hard bottoms, really." She walked over to the broom shed cheerfully, yet was worried about Harry terribly on the inside. _"What_ will_ I do if he's expelled?"_

x x x

"As much as I hate to admit it, Wood, if we can't find a seeker, Gryffindor will be unable to even play. Even if we were, do you really think that you'd win a single match without a seeker?" McGonagall asked her student. She sighed. "Just find someone who can stay on a broom and is willing to be seeker. Anyone will do."

The door opened and a furious Madam Hooch came through, followed by one of McGonagall's favorite students.

McGonagall looked at him with an expression of boredom on her face. "Frankly, I'm surprised that you managed to last this long, Mr. Potter. I expected to see you angrily escorted in here weeks ago. Although I suspected it would be a different professor. What did he do?" she asked Madam Hooch.

"After I took Mr. Longbottom to the hospital wing, I returned to the class to find him flying around, without a care in the world, and he suddenly took a dive and almost got himself splattered on the courtyard floor," she said angrily. "And I'm pretty sure the broom is beyond repair!"  
McGonagall sighed. "I'll take care of it, Rolanda." As Madam Hooch left, McGonagall turned to Harry. "Well?"

"Malfoy took something of mine and I had to make the dive or it would have broken."

"And what, pray tell, is more important than your life?" McGonagall asked sternly.

Harry looked around the room and noticed Wood. "I can't tell you right now."

"I'll just be going, then," Wood said as he turned to leave.

"Wait outside," McGonagall ordered. "I'll be with you in a moment."

He nodded and left, and McGonagall looked at Harry in expectation. He opened his hand and showed her the acorn.

"You almost got yourself killed for an acorn." McGonagall looked at him dully.

"Not just a regular acorn!" Harry replied. "This is Willow's acorn!"

McGonagall did not understand the significance of that; just that it was significant. "I see. And would you care to explain why you felt it necessary to risk your life to protect it?"

"She said that I needed to protect it at all costs," Harry started. "I'm supposed to be planting it in a nearby forest, but I haven't got around to it yet."

"Well, I'm sure she didn't want you to hurt yourself over it," she reasoned. "I will be writing a letter home, and you are not to be anywhere _near _the forbidden forest."

"But I—"

"As it is _forbidden_," McGonagallspecified.

Harry considered arguing more, but decided not to when he saw the look on McGonagall's face. "Fine."

"You will also be serving a detention with me next Thursday evening."

Harry counted the days in his head. "But that's—"

"No arguments, Potter. Now be on your way. I'm sure Miss Potter is both angry as well as worried."

"Yes, Professor," he said as he hung his head and began to walk away.

"Harry," she called and he turned around. "Try not to hurt yourself any more. I worry about you as well."

Harry nodded happily and left as Wood came back in after a gesture from McGonagall.

"Forget what I said. We're going to win the Quidditch cup, even if we _do _havea rookie seeker."

"You can't mean _him_…" Wood argued.

"If he's anything like his father, the cup is as good as ours."

"And if he's not?"

"Then at least we'll be allowed to have a team."

Wood nodded, and they were both silent for a moment. "Why didn't you tell him, then?"

"In my day, getting a crucial position on the Quidditch team was no punishment. I'll tell him after he's felt bad for a little bit."

x x x

After Harry left McGonagall's office, he wandered through the halls, thinking about what he had done. _"Were they overreacting? I might have crashed it at the end, but I was in control of the broom the entire time," _he thought to himself_. "I think McGonagall understands that it was important, but she seemed really upset with me._

_ "Then again, I _have_ ruined two perfectly good brooms now, even if I kept the safety charms on the second one."_ Harry kept walking, deep in thought, when he came up to the spot where he saw the illusionary glowing door. This time it looked slightly different, but Harry could not tell how. He grabbed the glowing handle and turned.

He walked into the room and closed the door behind him. A single torch illuminated a small room, empty except for a person sitting on a simple chair, which was on a short pedestal. As his eyes tried to focus on the person, he suddenly felt like he was intruding on something very personal.

"Oh! Sorry, I didn't think there would be anyone in here," Harry explained. "I'll just be going then."

As he turned to leave, a soft, feminine voice stopped him. "Wait." Harry turned to see the figure standing up and walking into the light. "Please don't go. I haven't talked to anyone in years."

A girl of about thirteen looked at him, begging him to stay. She had silver hair down to her waist and wore a pure white Victorian day dress that looked like it belonged in a wedding party.

"Er…you've been in here for years?" Harry asked incredulously. She nodded. "Who's been keeping you here? Did they hurt you?"

"No," she replied. "I just can't leave."

"What do you mean?"

"If I try to leave this room, I will cease to exist as you see me now," she explained simply.

"What?" Harry was very upset by then. "I'm sure I can try to find a way to get you out! Let me think a bit…"

"It's okay. I don't mind being stuck here. It's just nice to be able to talk to someone like this."

"Oh." Harry looked around awkwardly. "So who's keeping you from leaving, then?"

"I am." She continued to watch a very confused Harry.

"Er…right." Harry put out his hand as he introduced himself. "I'm Harry Potter."

"Of course you are," she said as she gently shook his hand. Her hand was abnormally cold. "Everything in the castle knows who you are."

"Are you okay? You're freezing!" he asked after he felt her skin.

"I'm fine," she said. "Thank you for asking."

"Well, if you're sure."

"Aren't you curious as to who I am, Harry?"

Harry looked her over quickly. "Should I know you?"

"Look beyond what your eyes tell you," she suggested.

For the first time since he entered the room, Harry turned on his magic sight, only to be so shocked that he turned it right back off. "You're—you're Hogwarts?"

The girl's face changed from the indifferent expression she had been wearing throughout the conversation into a small smile. "Good. I was hoping you would figure it out on your own."

Harry was in shock. "I heard rumors that the castle was alive, and I believed them because of what I've seen in my own life, but I didn't think that you looked like an actual person."

"I'm not. This form is merely a way to simplify the process of communicating with my castle. This room has been known as the Hogwarts core access chamber in the past."

"In the past? What do people call it now?" Harry asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"You are the only living person that knows about it."

"What? But surely the headmaster—"

"I told you I haven't spoken to anybody in quite some time. It has been several centuries since someone has acknowledged me as a sentient being," she said sadly. There have been rumors, of course, but no one has truly believed them."

"I believe you're real!" Harry defended.

"Thank you, Harry. Of course you do. Otherwise you would not have been able to get in. You tried once before, did you not?"

"So the reason I couldn't get in was because I didn't know you are alive?"

"Precisely. Even the most powerful professors and headmasters could not manage to figure out the mystery of the nonexistent doorway. It's been driving them mad for ages," she said with a smile.

"But doesn't Professor Dumbledore think you are alive?" Harry asked. "He said something like that at the opening feast."

"He meant it in a metaphorical sense. He meant that the students themselves give life to the castle."

"Oh."

"Your sister is looking for you, Harry," she said suddenly. "Before you go, I want to declare you the steward of Hogwarts."

"Like on an airplane?" Visions of walking through the common room offering people drinks flew through Harry's head.

Hogwarts laughed. "It is more like a substitute owner. Since you are the only one that will acknowledge the position that I am giving you, there is nobody to contest it."

Something clicked in Harry's head. "Wait, since I'm the last heir of Gryffindor, doesn't that mean that I would get that anyway? Aren't I standing in place of myself?"

"Not quite. For one thing, none of the other current heirs have come here. Also you are the heir by blood, not by magic."

"Is that why I couldn't take the sword?"

She nodded. "As the steward of Hogwarts, you have only limited access. Even if I am sentient, I must still follow the rules set forth by the founders. When all four magical heirs to the castle are declared and united, you four will have complete access to the castle controls," she explained. "However, until then, you must ask me permission for anything you wish to do. And then I shall choose whether or not to give it."

She went next to the chair she was sitting on earlier and pulled something out of a small box.

"What's this?" Harry asked as she put a ring onto his finger.

"This shows that you are my steward," she explained. "Most intelligent non-humans will know what this means when they see it, and that you are to be trusted. The centaurs, for example. You may be one of the few humans they will respect if you wear this."

Harry thought about that statement and looked at the ring that seemed to fit him perfectly. "I will take care of you as best as I can," he promised.

"Thank you, Harry. Now go find your sister. She's starting to get worried."

Harry nodded and ran out of the room like only a child could, waving to Hogwarts as he left.

x x x

_"Hermione?" _Harry called through their mental link.

_ "Harry! Where have you been? Malfoy's convinced half the school that you've been expelled."_

_ "No, I just got a detention on Thursday night. You actually believed him?"_

_ "Not a bit, but still…" _she began._ "Well, I've been looking all over for you!"_

_ "So why didn't you just ask me?" _Harryasked, and he felt her mentally blush in response.

_ "I kind of forgot I could," _she admitted. As they were talking, they both began to head in the direction of the other. _"So you just got one day of detention? That's not too bad, considering what you did."_

_ "It's Thursday night."_

_ "The Halloween feast? That's horrible."_

_ "Well, at least they aren't sending me home."_ Harry considered whether or not he should tell Hermione about Hogwarts. While he generally told her everything that happened to him, this felt like something he should keep to himself as much as possible.

_ "What is it, Harry?" _she asked mentally.

_ "Huh?"  
"You feel troubled." _Harry realized that she could feel his conflicted thoughts while the bond was active.

_ "Remember how Dumbledore said Hogwarts is alive?" _he asked._ "What do you think about that?"_

_ "I think he meant that metaphorically."_

_ "So you don't think that there's any chance that the castle is actually alive?"_

_ "Harry, a castle is a castle. How could it be alive?"_

Harry turned at the next hallway and almost ran into Hermione. They closed their mental link and began to walk to the common room.

"So you don't think that it's possible that a castle could be alive? Think about everything that we've seen and tell me it's not possible. Especially after you've felt the raw magic in the castle."

"I don't know, Harry. When you say it like that it almost makes sense. But really, a living castle? How would it come to life?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's from exposure to so much magic over the centuries. Or maybe it was built from some magical material that was alive. Maybe it's something that we can't even think about…"

Hermione stopped walking and looked at him. "You know something, don't you?"

"Well…I don't know if I'm supposed to tell you."

"You don't want to tell me?"

Harry looked at her. He wanted to tell her, but it was something she wouldn't believe on her own, and Hogwarts seemed to want him to keep it a secret. "I want to tell you, but I don't know if I should. It's someone else's secret, too."

"Fine, don't tell me," Hermione said as she started to walk faster.

"Hey, wait." Harry caught up to her and made her slow down. "Look, do you think that it's possible or not?"

Hermione paused in thought. "Well, if I never met Willow, I would have said that it's impossible to talk to a tree."

"And if you never met me, just think of all the things we do all the time that you would never have done," Harry argued.

"Okay, let's say that the castle _is _alive," Hermione began. "How does it grow? Can it be killed? Does it eat somehow? And, most importantly, how do you communicate with it?" She looked at Harry expectantly.

"I don't know. Maybe it doesn't do any of those things. Maybe sentient is a better word."

"Ok, I'll believe you. What did you see?"

Harry explained everything that happened to him after leaving McGonagall's office, including the details of his conversation with Hogwarts, and Hermione, going against her character, decided to believe, without evidence (except the ring, which she couldn't deny), that Harry had acquired some previously unheard of title from a secret room that contained a personification of Hogwarts. Not that she didn't want to see it for herself, of course.

x x x

Ten minutes into the Halloween feast, McGonagall came to the Gryffindor table to remove Harry, leaving Hermione with Neville and Ron, who had asked her for help casting a levitation charm.

"You have it down pretty well, except for your pronunciation," she explained. "It's Levi_o_sa, not Levio_sa._ Just get the pronunciation down and you should be able to cast the spell flawlessly."

"_Wingardium Levi_o_sa!"_ he said as he waved his wand at a fork. It rose up slightly and immediately fell back to the table.

"Neville, could you help him a bit, I have to go somewhere," she asked.

"Where are you going?" Ron asked innocently.

"I just have to freshen up a bit."

"Huh?"

Hermione mumbled something under her breath.

"What? I can't hear you," Ron said.

"I _said,_ I'm going to the bathroom!" she shouted a bit too loudly. "Is that alright with you?"

"Er…sorry," Ron said to her back as she left the hall.

"Don't worry; she gets embarrassed about that easily, even with Harry," Neville said.

"So you know them pretty well?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, I guess I'm their closest friend that's a student."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, they seem to get along well with McGonagall, and they've taken me with to visit Hagrid a couple times."

"That's kind of odd, isn't it?" Ron paused to drink some pumpkin juice. "They never seem to do anything in their classes. I don't think I've even _seen_ them in McGonagall's class, except for the first day."

"I think McGonagall is letting them do dome kind of independent study. They seem to already know everything except for potions and history." Neville began to watch his words. If he slipped up and told him something about his secret lessons with them, they probably wouldn't teach him anymore. He had the basic idea of how their system of magic worked: Just want it to happen and it will happen. But they still had to spend a lot of time encouraging him and giving him the tips that helped them figure everything out. He also had the feeling that there was a lot that they had not shown him yet.

Ron stared off into space as he slowly ate. "Neville, do you think I'm really a blood purist?"

"What? What makes you ask that?"

"Well, the sorting hat told me that I should be in Slytherin because I think I'm better than muggle-borns."

"That's ridiculous. Most pureblood families look down on yours because—" Ron shot him a look. "I mean—they think that you like muggles _too_ much."

"That's what I told the hat. But then later, I was thinking. My dad just likes to play with their stuff. I don't think anyone in my family actually understands them."

"Is this why you've been asking Hermione about muggle stuff lately?"

"Yeah. See, the hat said some really weird stuff. Something about how I could go to Gryffindor if I wanted, but it would make my life difficult," Ron said casually. "Would you believe it wanted to put me in _Slytherin_ of all places?"

"Oh?" Neville suddenly got a lot more interested in what Ron was saying.

"Come to think of it, it also said I was the last of the year, but there were still two people after me. I wonder if it's finally starting to break down? I mean, it's been almost a thousand years…"

"Yes, but it was enchanted by Gryffindor himself, you know."

Before Ron could reply, Professor Quirrel burst into the Great Hall, screaming at the top of his lungs. "TROLL! TROLL IN THE DUNGEONS!" before collapsing into a heap in the middle of the hall.

It was instant chaos. The younger students began to scream, and the teachers stood up, wands in hand.

"SILENCE!" Dumbledore demanded.

All action and sound in the hall stopped instantly.

"Thank you," he said softly. "Prefects, return your students to their houses. If the staff would come with me?"

The teachers nodded, a bit embarrassed, but they followed Dumbledore as he led them out of the hall. The prefects gathered the students and took them in the opposite direction. Ron began to follow the rest of the students, but Neville grabbed his arm.

"Don't worry, they'll stop the troll, I'm sure."

"It's not that," Neville interrupted. "Did you forget about Hermione? She's still out there somewhere."

Ron looked at the horde of students leaving, and turned to the eerily deserted hall, with half-filled plates quickly abandoned by fleeing students. "Let's hurry."

x x x

They eventually found Hermione as she was leaving the bathroom. Unfortunately, she walked right into a pillar-like leg.

"Hermione!" Ron shouted as she began to open her mouth to scream, which would have undoubtedly gained unwanted attention from the bored-looking troll, who was staring at the opposite wall, slowly shuffling around every so often.

Unfortunately, the troll looked over at Ron and Neville, who were running at it full speed. It grunted and turned to them, its club ready for action. Neville froze up, thoughts of what spells he should use flying through his mind, never stopping long enough for him to use. Hermione seemed to be in a similar state.

Ron, on the other hand, did not know a single spell that could be useful in this situation, so he said the first thing that came to his mind.

"_Wingardium Leviosa!" _He hoped that the spell would finally work and do something useful.

The levitation charm hit the troll and lifted it straight up into the stone ceiling. It fell back to the ground with a large thud and a tremor that all three of them felt.

The troll did not move. The three students stared at it, expecting it to get up at any second.

"I think you've got the spell mastered, Ron," Hermione pointed out.

"And a good thing you did," Neville said. "I couldn't think of a thing to do."

"Me neither," Hermione admitted with shame.

"Ms. Potter!" What is going on here?"

Hermione turned around to see McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Snape rushing over to them.

"Er…" Hermione began eloquently. "They came to save me from what seems to be a mountain troll."

"And? What did you do?" McGonagall asked the boys.

"Ron used a levitation charm," Neville supplied. "Hermione and I just couldn't think of anything."

"Good work, Weasley. Fifteen points to Gryffindor." Ron's face lit up. "And take five each for almost getting yourself killed. I will escort you back to Gryffindor, where Mr. Potter is waiting for you, no doubt worried out of his mind."

After McGonagall snapped them back into reality, Hermione realized that Harry was indeed frantically banging on her mental wall. She opened the connection slightly and sent a feeling of reassurance to Harry as McGonagall led them away.

x x x

"I think we should tell Ron about what happened to us with the sorting hat," Neville said a few days later when they were alone together for the first time since the incident with the troll. "He was saying something that sounded like what it told us."

"What did he say?" Harry asked.

"He said it told him that he was the last of the year. But there were a couple people after him. Just like it said I was first, but there were a bunch of people before me. Also it warned him about going to Gryffindor and said he should be in Slytherin."

"So we know that whatever we are, there will be six of us in total, there are four or five of us, including Ron, and at least one will be coming next year. If there is another here, they are a first year with a last name between P and W," Hermione said.

"Also, we will make up some kind of team or something. Something risky that could lead to us being either famous or dead," Harry added.

"I think we should get him in on this and see if knows about it. And you should bring him in on our magic lessons," Neville suggested.

Harry and Hermione looked at each other in the way that they often did, and which often left them coming to some kind of decision. "I don't know, Neville."

"You should at least think about it," he said in response.

**A/N:** Sorry it's been forever. I'm not dead. Next chapter should be around thanksgiving.


	13. Quodditch

**Chapter 12: Quodditch**

The Potters were once again in the library looking for inspiration for new branches of magic that they could alter to make their own. They had recently discovered the concept of wards, something that they had vaguely thought about before, but not to the extent of what they found waiting for them in the dusty tomes.

"Harry, if this is right, then you or Willow might have accidentally put up some wards at the tree. Remember how Dudley is almost afraid of it?"

"So our idea about the need for runes to be at the borders of the warded area is wrong?" Harry asked.

"Well, maybe, but I think you just did it a different way. Maybe using the runes will make it stronger or last longer."

"You think so?"

Once Harry had taught Hermione everything he knew, he realized the difference between them: Hermione was a genius and could figure things out much easier than Harry, who had an amazing imagination and almost no self-restriction. If he wanted a spell to work, it worked. Together, there was nothing they couldn't do if they tried.

Neville, on the other hand, had reached a limit. It was almost as if he simply ran out of extra room to learn the Potter magic. His classwork had improved so much that he was in the top quarter of every class except Potions, though that was mostly Snape's fault. Neville's confidence when he was involved had actually gone down since he started succeeding in other classes.

"Anyway, let's ward your house too," Harry suggested. "It's impossible for Willow to put them up at your house, right?"

"Yeah, and that's probably a good idea."  
"Why can't Willow ward your house too?" Neville asked. They hadn't told them _what _Willow was exactly, but he knew that she was Harry's guardian.

"Er… she doesn't get out of the house much. Anyway, we can just do it ourselves once we figure out how." With that, Harry passed two more thick tomes to Hermione and they went back to researching. Neville glanced between the two.

"You know that we're not allowed to use magic outside of school, right?"

They both froze and slowly looked up to meet his hesitant gaze.

"I… I mean, I thought it was common knowledge, or I would have told you a long time ago…" He began to withdraw into the nervous state he was in before he met them.

"Calm down, Neville," Hermione reassured him. "We're not mad at you or anything."

"That's right. We're just a bit stunned and confused."

"Especially since we've been using magic for years without any problems."

"Well…everyone is expected to have accidental magic at that age," Neville began. "They don't really care about that unless you do it in front of muggles."

"Well, that's not a problem. Harry and I have always been very careful about that," Hermione said proudly.

"That's right! We even go halfway across the world to the middle of the mountains if we need to blow something up!" Harry added helpfully.

Neville was slowly getting used to moments like these, so he nodded and continued as if everything was perfectly normal. "Well, you can't do that anymore. Once you go back for the summer, they're going to expel you if you do magic at home."

"E-expel?" Hermione looked as if she had been sentenced to death twice.

"That's a problem," Harry said seriously.

"Well, you can go for three months without magic, can't you?"

"But I'm a wizard! I shouldn't have to, first of all! And I can't go for a day without! It's how I live!"

"Don't you think you're exaggerating just a bit?"

"Harry's house doesn't have a door," Hermione added with the sort of blunt impact that Neville had come to expect from them.

"Right. Well. That's a bit of a problem…"

"I also conjure all my food."

"That's not going to be a problem, Harry. Even if you _could_ conjure it, you're still going to eat with us," Hermione assured him.

"Well, what about just living? Do you realize how much magic we use without even trying?"

Hermione thought about it. Their bond, their magic sensing abilities, Harry's nature skills, Harry's snake-language ability…

"How come you get all the cool powers!" she whispered furiously as she began to hit his head repeatedly, still conscious that they were in the library, and the library was a place for peace and quiet.

"Ow! It's not like I did it on purpose!" He defended himself with the closest object, which happened to be a huge, ancient-looking book.

"You! Defiling a tool of learning to avoid your punishment!"

"Er… guys…" Neville pointed towards the other end of the library, where Madam Pince was glaring in their direction and a second away from heading over. Hermione blushed and regained her composure as Harry gently placed the book back on the table, holding it with the tips of his fingers as if it would bite him at any second.

"At any rate, all we have to do is figure out a way to break the rule and not get caught." Harry suggested breaking one of the strictest rules for underage wizards casually and with an almost bored tone.

"This might take all term," Hermione said.

"You both actually think you can do this?" Neville asked. They might be bizarrely powerful and incredibly smart, but they were still less than a quarter of the way through their first year.

Harry looked him directly in the eyes. "Neville," he started, "we're pretty sure we could go to the moon if we tried."

"It might collapse the gravitational field of the solar system…" Hermione continued.

"…But in the end, we'd be on the moon."

x x x

"Ron finally sent us an owl for the first time since he got to Hogwarts, and it's all just telling about how he almost got killed fighting a troll. Mum was furious, but didn't say anything back about it because he was so happy that he accidentally won his fight. Plus I guess he saved a couple other kids or something."

Ginny and Luna were laying in the grass outside the Burrow, staving off their boredom by either complaining about the other Weasley children (in Ginny's case) or by drifting through thoughts made of dewdrops, dead leaves, and pine cones (in Luna's case).

"Well, it's not every day that one meets a troll that isn't ill with Clumpworth's disease. He was probably very excited, especially if he beat it."

"Clumpworth's disease? Never heard of it."

"Of course not! Do you realize how many trolls would be found out if people knew about it?"

"Found out?"

"Clumpworth's disease makes an ordinary troll look like a stupid, ugly, yet pointlessly strong human."

Ginny giggled. "Clumpworth's disease? You're making it up! Are you serious?"

Luna leaned forward so that she was looking directly in Ginny's eyes and her usual serene expression turned uncharacteristically serious. "Yes, Ginevra. Always."

They both burst into laughter. "It's not funny!" Luna said through her laughter. "It's a worldwide epidemic!"

Luna collapsed onto Ginny's stomach.

As their laughter died down, Ginny looked at Luna as she began to speak. "Hey, Luna?"

Their eyes met.

"Yes, Ginevra?"

"We'll always be friends, right? You're not going to go make other friends at Hogwarts and leave me behind like the rest?"

Luna showed Ginny her signature serene smile. "Of course not. But wouldn't it be the other way around? I'm no good at making friends, but you've always been very popular." Her smile never wavered.

"Of course not! We'll be friends forever."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence for a while.

"What else did the owl say?"

"Not much. Oh, right! He said he's gotten a bit closer to Harry Potter and his sister. I didn't even know he had a sister."

"Maybe he got a new one," Luna suggested.

"They're the same age. And his parents are… you know…"

"Maybe she's his older sister from the future who went back in time."

"I don't think she's a time traveler," Ginny said skeptically.

"Well, maybe it won't happen for another few years." Luna was confident this time.

"…Anyway, he said they're kind of…weird…but they're good people." What he actually said was that they were 'Loonier than a Lovegood,' but Luna didn't need to know that.

"It sounds like he's a good person. I'm glad he's not like he is in all those books and things."

"Yeah… I still wish he was a cool hero person, though."

x x x

A few days later, Harry and his friends were sitting at the table in the Great Hall when a long, thin package carried by several huge Eagle Owls arrived on Harry's plate, disturbing his breakfast greatly.

"Hey! What's this supposed to be!" The Owls ignored him, stole his food, and left.

"There's a letter, Harry." Hermione held up an envelope that seemed to have been partially dipped in oatmeal or something of the like, and Harry took it from her.

"It's from McGonagall," Harry read. "She says it's 'an additional part of my punishment and also the most trying.' What's that supposed to mean?"

"Open it."

"She said not to. I'm 'to proceed directly to her office with the package intact' after I'm done eating."

"What do you think it is, this additional punishment?"

Harry went into thought for a moment. "Maybe this is a punishment stick or something."

"No, I think that's more Snape's style," Hermione said.

"And Filch's," Neville added helpfully.

"Whatever. I'll find out in a little bit."

After he finished eating, he proceeded directly to her office with the package miraculously intact, despite the curious looks Hermione and Neville (and Ron, who had been talking to them a bit more since the troll incident) were casting upon it throughout the meal. He knocked on her door and waited.

"Enter," he heard, and followed the command. "Ah. Potter. Good timing. Did you bring it? Have a seat."

Harry sat down in the chair in front of her desk and waited in silence for her to continue, feeling for the first time in years like he had done something wrong. McGonagall stared at him for a few seconds, and inspected the wrapping on the package.

"I'm impressed, Potter. I was sure that this would be open much sooner than the letter would be."

Harry felt that he had permission to smile. "Well, you know Hermione, Professor. Everything has to be done in order, by the book."

"A trait that you, among many others, could learn from." Harry's smile disappeared and he remembered that he was there to be punished. "However, I will admit that there is also merit in ignoring that completely and choosing your own path, as your own prowess with magic will attest to. Go on, open it."

Harry pulled open the brown paper wrappings with no little trepidation. "It's a broom."

"A Nimbus 2000," McGonagall confirmed.

"Is the Nimbus 2000 a punishment broom?" Harry asked nervously.

"The punishment is that you're going to be the new seeker for Gryffindor."

Harry stared at her for a few more seconds. "Seeking what?"

McGonagall blinked. "Are you telling me that with all those books I'm sure you two bought, not one of them contained information relevant to Quidditch?"

"Sorry."

"Well, ask a Weasley about it. I'm sure any one of them will be eager to explain in depth. All you need to know is that it is a sport played on brooms, you will play for Gryffindor, and you will not destroy this broom."

"Right." Harry wisely decided not to ask what sort of modifications he was allowed to make to it.

"Well, that's all for now. Go find someone to tell you how to play and get some practice in. The first game's right around the corner."

"When is it?" Harry asked.

"Saturday."

"What! But then I only have four days to figure everything out!" Harry began to panic.

"Relax, Potter. If there's one thing you're good at, it's figuring things out quickly and destroying everyone's expectations. We don't normally allow first-years to be on the team, so this is a special exception."

"Just because you want to punish me?"

"My, no, Potter." She chuckled politely. "Because we couldn't find anyone else and you made an amazing catch out there. If you don't play, then Gryffindor automatically loses on Saturday. To Slytherin. Which won't happen, will it?"

Harry shrank back at the look she was giving him. "No, of course not…"

"Good. Now go find out how to play," she said, and Harry practically sprinted out of the room.

x x x

"RON!"

"Aah!" Harry had appeared from behind Ron and grabbed his collar.

"I need your help with something! Now!"

"Don't take my blood!" he said, starting to cry.

"What? I need you to explain how to play Quodditch."

"Quidditch," he corrected automatically.

"Good! Keep going. I need to be able to play in a game by Saturday."

"What? You're on the team? What position?"

"Er…" Harry thought back to his conversation with McGonagall. "Well…it's on a broom…"

"Right…"

"And I can't destroy the broom…"

"Harry, both of those describe _every_ position."

"And I have to be able to catch things."

"So it's not beater or keeper..."

Harry stared blankly at him.

"A big thing or a small thing?" Ron asked.

"Well, a small one I guess…"

"Seeker? You're going to be seeker?"

"Yeah! That's the one!" Harry's eyes lit up. "Wow, you _do _know a lot about this!"

_"This is going to take a while…" _Ron thought to himself.

x x x

After Ron took a few hours explaining Quidditch to Harry, he thought he was beginning to understand how the game worked. Then Ron continued to explain, and Harry realized it would keep continuing for a long time unless something changed. Fortunately for Harry, fate was kind enough to answer his pleas for help.

"Oi! Harry!" Harry looked up at a voice that he did not recognize to see an older student making his way over.

"Er…hi." The first few days at Hogwarts, several people approached him as if they were old friends, only to ask him about his personal mythology. After a while, however, the novelty surrounding him died down and he was mostly treated like a normal (albeit unusual and highly talented) student.

"I'm Oliver Wood. Keeper and Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and defender of the beautiful chasers on our te—oof." One of the Weasley twins came up from behind him and hit him in the stomach with his beater's bat.

"Isn't that our job?"

"Yeah, protect them from you," the second twin said as he also arrived.

"Just keep the balls away from us and we'll be fine," a voice from behind Harry said.

Harry turned around to see three girls that he vaguely recognized from sitting around the Gryffindor common room and the table in the Great Hall.

"I'm Angelina Johnson," the girl that spoke before said. "And this is Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet. We're the chasers."

"Oh. Hi," Harry finally responded. "So has the entire team come to punish me?"

They looked at each other in confusion. "Punish you for what?" Wood asked.

"McGonagall put me on the team just to punish me for breaking one of the brooms…"

Wood stared at him.

"Okay, two of the brooms. But the first one I didn't break. I just took some of the enchantments off to make it work better."

"Harry…"

"Okay, so by better I mean faster, and it probably _would _have been dangerous if anyone besides me used it, but I was going to put them back on! They didn't have to go through the entire set of brooms checking for—"

"Harry!"

"What!"

"We have practice," Wood said simply.

Harry calmed down. "Oh," he said sheepishly. "All right, then."

As Wood led them down to the Quidditch pitch, Harry began to make his already fast broom faster. He removed some things like the speed limiter and the auto-braking system and replaced them with an enchantment he made himself that worked in essentially the same way but could be released at any time with little effort, and reengaged just as easily so that he could add intense bursts of speed and tight turns. He left some of the other things on because he really did not want his new broom to be destroyed so soon. Or at all.

"Got that, Harry?" Wood asked as they reached the pitch.

"Yeah," he replied, without any clue as to what he said.

"Good. Then let's get started."

For the next few hours, they all flew around doing what they were supposed to, and Harry tested the limits of his new broom while lazily looking for what he now knew to be the snitch. Eventually he heard a whistle and everyone landed.

"Alright. Let's call it a day here," Wood declared. "How'd it go, Harry? New broom okay?"

"Yeah, it's pretty good," he said as he held it up and looked at it.

"Pretty good!" one of the twins shouted. "A brand-new Nimbus 2000 and he says it's just 'pretty good.''

"Well, I made some adjustments to it, but it's obvious that it can still go a lot faster. Though some of the enchantments are twisted around each other like spaghetti and I'd have to take them all off and put them back again, and I don't know what they all are. There's about thirty of them there and I only recognize about six… I'd have to learn a lot more about broomstick enchanting to do it right. Whoever did this mess needs to learn a lot more, as well," Harry explained with an annoyed sigh.

"You _are _just a first-year, right?" Angelina said while the rest just stared in shock.

"Well…yeah, but I haven't seen a professionally made broom until a few weeks ago. The past few years I've had to make my own."

The shock increased further.

"Harry…" Wood put his arm around Harry's shoulder. "Welcome to the team."

x x x

After spending the rest of the week practicing and worrying, Saturday morning finally came around and Harry sat at the table in the Great Hall, counting down the time until the game began.

"Don't worry, Harry," Neville said. "I'm sure it'll go fine."

"Yeah," Ron added. "They wouldn't have put you on the team if they didn't think you could do it."

"He's not worried about the game. He's worried about whether McGonagall will notice all the changes he made to his broom." Hermione glared at him as the others looked on in confusion.

"It'll be fine," Harry told himself.

The Weasley twins walked up behind him. "Let's go, Harry."

"Now?"

"Wood wants to go over some last minute plays."

"For that long?"

"Get used to it," they said in unison, and carried him away.

x x x

"Now, I want a nice, clean game from all of you," Madam Hooch said as she inspected both teams for signs of foul play. Harry thought that if anyone was going to do anything against the rules, it would be the Slytherin captain, Marcus Flint, who looked like a shrunken-down troll. Madam Hooch seemed to think Flint was suspicious as well, as she also kept a discerning eye on him. As she blew the whistle, the players scattered and began to play faster than most of the crowd could see.

Harry flew up high so that he could see the snitch as soon as it came up, and in doing so saw a huge banner held up across the Gryffindor stands that read 'Potter for President.' Hermione must have made it so that the paint changed colors, but (like Harry) she wasn't very good at drawing. Harry suspected Neville had no talent in that area either. It must have been one of the other Gryffindors that painted a huge lion on the banner.

_"There's no Dudley here to ruin every friendship I make," _Harry thought._ "I suppose I should get to know the other Gryffindors better."_

"And Spinnet has the Quaffle, a great pass to Bell—not to mention they're both great looking!"

"Jordan! concentrate on the game!" McGonagall, who was sitting next to Lee Jordan, scolded him for the first of many times.

"Sorry, Professor. Bell passes to Johns—Flint intercepts, and he's getting out of there quick! He shoots…And it's stopped by Gryffindor keeper Wood! Gryffindor takes back the Quaffle! Angelina Johnson with the Quaffle, going straight down the field—impressive dodge there, and—oh, that's gotta hurt! Johnson takes a bludger to the back of the head, and Slytherin takes the Quaffle after that open assault on our—I mean—on Gryffindor's chaser!"

Harry watched the other players' frenzy from far up above and felt as if he was completely useless. He hovered, floated, did figure-eights, and the snitch still did not show itself. Harry began to wonder if it had even actually been released, when he saw a flash of gold from across the field. Unfortunately it looked like the Slytherin seeker had noticed it just at about the same time, and he was half a field closer.

"It looks like Higgs has seen the snitch! And Potter follows! Can our youngest seeker in reasonable history pull off a miracle? Or will I be out five galleons?"

"JORDAN!"

Fortunately for Harry and everyone that placed monetary faith in him, Harry was someone that pulled off minor miracles daily with little effort. He took off the temporary speed limiter that he put on and shot forward at twice the safe speed.

Meanwhile, a figure in the stands lowered his wand. "It appears someone has already done my work for me…" he muttered to himself.

"What's this! Potter's put out an incredible burst of speed! I've never seen anything like it! He might actually make it!"

Higgs, the Slytherin seeker, looked behind him in doubt and quickly clutched his broom for support as Harry breezed past him to catch the snitch.

"Whoah…"Harry then breezed past the snitch. "I guess my enchantments still need some work," he said to himself as he put them back on for more control.

Higgs saw his second chance and reached for the snitch at the same time Harry did. As Harry reached for it, his broom lurched forward, putting his hand directly around the snitch.

"GRYFFINDOR WINS! One hundred and seventy points to sixty! And I get five galleons!"

Harry did not pay attention to the verbal scuffle between McGonagall and Lee Jordan, as he was concerned about his broom. He put the speed limiters back on, but one of the balancing enchantments was missing, which caused him to accidentally win the game. He restored it easily, but it was a victory that left a bitter taste in his mouth.

x x x

The day after the match, Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Ron went to visit Hagrid. Ever since Ron saved Hermione and Neville from the troll on Halloween with his random yet effective spell, he had been a part of their group more and more often. The Potters still adamantly refused to teach him their magic like Neville wanted, however. He had average performance in classes and that was as much effort as he was giving, so they saw no need to add any effort of their own.

While the other three had all visited Hagrid before, but it was a first for Ron, so he was treated as something like a guest of honor. Hagrid made tea for them all, and passed around cakes that they each made an attempt to bite into out of politeness.

"Yeah… I knew yer brother Charlie when he was jus' a student here," Hagrid said as he sipped from his bowl-sized teacup. "I'd 'ave loved to have 'im as my assistant or somethin'. 'E was great with animals."

"Well, he's working with dragons in Romania now, you know."

"Izzat so? I've always wanted ter have a pet dragon, myself."

Even Harry and Hermione looked at him doubtfully at that. "Hagrid, aren't dragon's big and…well…fiery?" Hermione asked.

"Well…that is ter say…" Hagrid thought about it for a moment. "Ye'd just have to get an egg an' raise it from birth!"

"And the fire?" Everyone watched as Hagrid struggled to come up with a response.

"Er…well, I'm sure it'd work out somehow! But enough about me. How're yer classes goin'?"

They talked for a while more before leaving to go back to the castle. While Ron and Neville were distracted by talking with each other, Harry opened his link to Hermione.

_"Did you notice anything odd about Hagrid?" _he asked her.

_ "Hmm…well, he was a bit quieter than usual," _she thought._ "Why do you ask?"_

_ "Well, he was worried about something so much that every time I looked him in the eyes he projected his thoughts out."_

_ "Harry! That's legilimency! You shouldn't be doing that, especially on a friend."_

_ "It's not like I was trying to! Besides. I stopped looking him in the eye when I realized what was happening. He's just got too honest of a personality."_

_ "What do you mean?"_

_ "Well, he's worried about some theft at Gringott's. If we went and just asked him about it, he'd probably spill everything about it, no magic necessary."_

Hermione sighed._ "You might be right. But why do you think he's worried about a bank theft? They said the vault that was broken into was empty."_

Harry looked up. _"Huh? You know about it?"_

_ "I actually read the newspaper every day; and you should too, Harry Potter."_

_ "I think I read too much as it is." _Hermione looked aghast at that._ "Alright, so what did it say?"_

_ "Not much. Just that the vault had been emptied earlier that day."_

Harry thought for a moment._ "Okay, so it wasn't his vault that was robbed. Maybe he's just afraid that someone will break into his vault next?"_

_ "Maybe…" _Hermione looked doubtful, but had no more ideas, so they approached towards the castle in silence as Ron and Neville chatted loudly.

"Hey, Potter," a voice said from around the corner as they entered the castle. "That was a nice win yesterday."

The four Gryffindors eyed Draco Malfoy and his two laughing goons warily. "I'm surprised to hear you of all people say that, Malfoy," Harry said.

"No, no. I meant everything I said." His words were dripping with sarcasm. "It's surprisingly difficult to catch the snitch by accident, you know."

Harry's face turned red as Crabbe and Goyle laughed obediently. Ron and Neville apparently did not notice what Malfoy did during the game, because they leapt to his defense. "What are you on about, Malfoy? Harry won, fair and square!"

"Yeah! Don't be jealous just because Slytherin lost." Ron seemed to take the insult the worst out of all of them, perhaps because he was the one who taught Harry how to play. "We won and that's that."

Malfoy smirked. "Right. Of course you did. Because there's no rule against accidentally grabbing onto the snitch while trying not to fall right off the front of your broom."

"You!" Ron looked like he was about to pull his wand out, but Harry stopped him.

"I'm surprised you actually noticed that, Malfoy," Harry said as he smirked back at him, and Ron and Neville looked at him in shock, with Hermione giving him a look of mild curiosity. While she actually had noticed (because of their bond, not because she cared about Quidditch), she did not expect him to openly admit it, especially to Malfoy of all people. "But does it really matter? After all, there's only one person here who's on a team. Oh… and that was all because of you wasn't it? I suppose I never thanked you properly."

"P-Potter! That does it! Wizard's duel!" Crabbe and Goyle cracked their knuckles as Malfoy ground his teeth in anger.

"Hmm? Why do I have to duel you?" Harry asked casually, only adding fuel to the fire.

"Because you can't refuse a duel!"

"Yes I can."

"You can't! Your honor's at stake!"

"Didn't I just lose my honor when I admitted to winning the match by accident?" The Grffindors chuckled a bit. "I'm still better than you, though…"

That seemed to be his breaking point, as he pulled his wand out right then and there. "You'll duel me whether you want to or not!"

Harry put his hands up to calm him down. "Fine, fine," he sighed. "But not here. We'll all get in trouble."

That seemed to calm him down a bit and he put his wand away. "Fine. The trophy room at midnight. You better be there."

"Alright. We'll be there," Harry promised.

"We?" the other three Gryffindors asked together.

"Well, I'll need somebody to be my second in case I die. And I've got _aaaallll_ night to decide," Harry said pleasantly and began to lead them away.

"Hermione!" Ron and Neville said together.

"What?"

"Hey, you're going to make a lady fight? How uncouth."

Malfoy watched them argue about who was going to be the second until they were out of sight and turned to choose his own. "Well? It's not like I'll need one, but somebody's got to do it."

x x x

After dinner, as the Gryffindors were heading back to their tower, Harry pulled Hermione apart from the rest of the crowd.

"We've got something to do real quick," Harry explained.

"Okay, we'll come with," Neville said.

"Er...no, it's…official Hogwart's business. Top secret."

Neville and Ron looked at them oddly. "O-okay then…"

While they kept heading to Gryffindor tower with the others, Harry pulled Hermione in a different direction. "Harry, what sort of 'official business' do we have?"

"You'll see."

"Ooh, I bet you're going to tell McGonagall about that silly duel of yours, right?"

"Close. This way." They came to a stop in the middle of the hallway.

Hermione looked at the wall in front of her. "Hey, there's something here."

"Yeah. We need to figure out a way for you to practice your magic sensing so that you can actually see it."

"So is this that doorway thing?"

"Yeah. The core access chamber or something like that." Hermione watched Harry reach up to a point in midair and turn it like a doorknob. Sure enough, a door opened where the wall was a second earlier.

"C'mon," Harry said as he went into the room.

"Good evening, Harry. And you've brought a visitor."

"Oh…Hello," Hermione said nervously.

"Relax, Hermione," the manifestation of Hogwarts said. "I may be Hogwarts, but I have neither the power nor the desire to change your grades. That's for the teachers to do."

Hermione laughed nervously, but seemed to be slightly relieved. "Well, it's nice to finally meet you. So, what's your name?"

"Name? Why, it's Hogwarts, of course."

"She's right, though," Harry agreed. "There's Hogwarts the castle and Hogwarts the person."

"We are both the same thing, though."

"It's best to just accept it. Once Harry gets it in his mind to name something, nothing will change it."

They both looked at Harry, who was deep in thought. "Hoggy," he said confidently.

"Harry, you're hereby forbidden to pick names for anything, living or otherwise," Hermione said.

"I don't believe that 'Hoggy' would be an appropriate name," she said with a light blush.

They were silent for a moment. "How about…Beatrice?" Hermione suggested.

She looked at Hermione in doubt. "I believe that is an even less appropriate name. 'Traveller?'"

"Oh…well…education is a journey, isn't it?"

"You just want someone else to have a Shakespeare name. Admit it," Harry accused.

"Just because I didn't know the meaning of the name—"

"Whatever, Hermione…" Harry smiled, confident that he had won.

"I don't mind being called Beatrice. As long as you remember who I really am," the newly christened Beatrice said. "So what brings you two here today. Did you merely come to name me?"

"Oh! Right. Can you lock down the Slytherin common room door after curfew for everyone except the heads of house?"

Beatrice narrowed her eyes. "That is a fairly disruptive action, Harry. I would need a very good reason to do that."

"Well, if you don't, I'll have to duel Draco Malfoy for some stupid reason. Or at least that's what he told me. Knowing him, I'm willing to bet it's some kind of trap. Anyway, I'd like to avoid it."

"I suppose that is acceptable, since the alternative would result in you breaking school rules and your possible injury."

"Great! Thanks."

"See, Harry? Rules are there for a reason," Hermione said pleasantly. "I'm sure she's very strict about rules."

"I suppose you think that if I allow rules to be broken, I will disintegrate or some similar idea?" Beatrice asked and smiled for the first time. "It is merely the job given to me by the founders. If they told me to destroy everyone that was not pure-blooded, like Salazar Slytherin desired, then I would be compelled to kill both of you right here."

The room went silent.

"Well, that's not very nice," Harry said, trying to break the tension.

"I would try to ignore the orders as much as I can, just as I can ignore some minor rule breaking with no ill effect. Especially with the current headmaster, who seems to think that mischief should be taught instead of divination."

The Potters laughed nervously. "Well… that's good. We better be going then…"

"Please come visit me again soon," Beatrice said as she waved goodbye, and they left.

Harry jumped as the door slammed shut loudly. "Okay, that was more than a bit unsettling…"

"Yes. Let's try to forget that conversation ever happened." Harry nodded his head in agreement.

x x x

The next day, the Gryffindor first-years were standing outside of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, waiting for Professor Quirrell to arrive, when Malfoy and his goons walked up.

"Where were you last night, Potter? I guess you chickened out, after all."

_"What's he talking about, Harry?" _Hermione thought to him._ "Why would he try such an obvious lie?"_

_ "Maybe he thinks all the common rooms were locked down. My guess is that he was going to try and tell someone we were out after hours, but he couldn't leave himself, so now he's just going to try and bluff his way into some kind of victory."_

"Where were _you_ last night?" Harry countered. "We waited forever."

"Well… it took me a while to sneak up," he lied. "Couldn't get caught, you know. By the time I got there, you'd already run off."

"Is that so." Harry said in a bored tone. "What time was that? I doubt we had left by that point.

"It was…" Malfoy thought quickly. "…Probably around one."

"I doubt it," Harry said instantly. "We were still there then."

"What? How late were you there?"

"Pretty late, I guess."

"Harry wanted to make sure his honor remained intact," Hermione interjected.

"Well then it must have been later than that. Maybe two."

"Nope. We were still there."

"Three, then."

"Sorry. Wrong."

"It doesn't matter! I came after you left!"

"I highly doubt that," Harry said with a smirk. "You see, we brought blankets and spent the whole night there. We didn't think you'd actually come, so we figured we'd make ourselves comfortable. We were there until seven."

"That's ridiculous! You're lying!"

"Aren't you the one who's lying?" Harry asked calmly. "Didn't you say you came? We waited there until morning, but you never showed."

"Sh-shut up, Potter!" he said, and stormed off, with his cronies attached.

"Uh, Harry?"

"Yes, Neville?"

"Weren't you in bed all night?"

"That's right."

"So, just now…"

"It was a bluffing contest."

"Oh."

"We won."

"Good work, Harry."


End file.
